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LIBRARY 

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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

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http://www.archive.org/details/bookshowtomakemoOOpennrich 


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Books  and  How  to  Make  the 
Most  of  Them 


BY 


JAMES  HOSMER  PENNIMAN 
0f 


C.  W.  BARDEEN,  PUBLISHER 

Syracuse,  N.  Y. 


Copyright,  1911,  by  C.  W.  Bardeen 


There  is  probably  no  subject  on  whicb 
there  has  been  more  advice  given  than  on 
that  of  books  and  reading,  but  there  are 
few  upon  which  advice  is  more  necessary, 
for  even  so  wise  a  man  as  Goethe  said,  "I 
have  been  fifty  years  trying  to  learn  how 
to  read,  and  I  have  not  learned  yet." 


222664 


•  •     .••     .•-   •! 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Miracle  of  Books 9^ 

11.  How  to  Use  Books, 18 

III.  Cultivating  the  Memory 2(> 

IV.  What  to  Read  and  the  Abuse  of 

Books 31 

V.  The  Art  of  Reading 40 

VI.  Classification  of  Books 54 

VII.  Poetry   . 62 

VIII.  Biography 70 

IX.  History    77 

X.  Fiction 85 

XL  Libraries  and  the  Care  of  Books .  91 


Boolutti  How  to  Mate  the  Most  ollein 

CHAPTER  I. 
THE  MIRACLE  OF  BOOKS. 

A  book  is  a  miracle  wrought  by  human 
agency.  What  more  wonderful  than  that 
the  thought  of  a  lifetime  should  be  made 
visible  and  concentrated  so  as  to  be 
carried  in  the  pocket;  that  black  lines 
and  dots  upon  a  white  page  should  bring 
before  our  minds  the  most  beautiful 
images.  More  remarkable  than  the  tele- 
graph or  the  telephone,  a  book  not  only 
annihilates  space  but  time,  and  carries 
the  voice  of  David  or  Homer  across  the 
seas  of  the  ages. 

The  miracle  of  the  widow's  cruse  finds 
its  literal  realization  in  a  book.  We 
may  take  all  we  can  from  it  but  there 
is  just  as  much  left  for  others  with  the 
sole  limitation  that  he  gets  the  most 
from  books  who  has  the  most  knowledge; 
to  him  that  hath  is  given. 

(9) 


.• :  • 


10       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

No  other  property  is  so  peculiarly  our 
own  as  our  intellectual  possessions.  They 
are  always  with  us;  no  reversal  of  fortune 
can  deprive  us  of  them.  If  we  share  our 
knowledge  with  another  we  still  have 
it,  and  perhaps  in  a  more  orderly  and 
useful  form  as  the  result  of  contact  with 
a  different  mind,  and  the  belief  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  makes  us  sure 
that  our  mental  acquisitions  are  taken 
with  us  beyond  the  grave.  Education 
and  culture  would  be  of  small  value 
if  they  were  to  be  terminated  by  the 
expiration  of  a  few  short  years  of  life. 
Books  are  the  only  work  of  man  that  may 
be  said  to  be  omniscient.  They  are  the 
stored-up  memory  of  the  race.  As  all 
our  experience  of  life  would  vanish  without 
memory,  so  all  accurate  knowledge  of 
mankind  would  evaporate  without  books 
and  we  should  have  nothing  to  depend 
upon  but  tradition. 

Without  books  we  should  know  nothing 
of  the  workings  of  the  mighty  minds 
of  Homer,  Virgil,  Dante,  Shakespeare 
or  Milton.  Without  them  Caesar,  Napol- 
eon and  Washington  would  be  traditions. 
We  can  get  but  an  imperfect  idea  of  the 


The  Miracle  of  Books  11 

history  of  our  country  except  from  books. 
Books  alone  make  books  possible,  and 
nothing  is  more  rare  than  a  book  which 
does  not  depend  for  its  material  on  other 
books. 

Books  stereotype  and  petrify  language 
so  that  while  the  spoken  word  is  volatile 
and  changeable  we  find  in  books  the  very 
words  in  which  we  took  delight  years 
ago.  We  may  cause  to  pass  through 
our  minds  the  same  thoughts  in  absolute- 
ly the  same  language  that  interested 
Dr.  Johnson  or  Milton ;  we  may  even  follow 
out  the  mental  processes  of  Plato  or 
Aristotle,  and  see  what  they  enjoyed 
and   note   what   they  thought. 

Books  intensify  thought;  a  book  is 
better  than  conversation  in  that  it  may 
be  brooded  over,  revised,  extended,  pol- 
ished and  continued  from  time  to  time, 
but  it  cannot  answer  questions  except 
those  anticipated  by  its  author.  A  writer 
will  put  into  a  book  thoughts  that  he 
would  not  or  could  not  express  in  con- 
versation, and  through  his  books  we  may 
know  intimately  a  man  who  was  known 
only  superficially  by  his  most  familiar 
contemporaries. 


12      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Books  not  only  acquaint  us  with  the 
thoughts  of  the  great  men  of  the  past 
but  they  enable  us  to  make  permanent 
our  own  thoughts,  so  that  if  our  ideas 
are  worthy  of  being  perpetuated  those 
who  live  centuries  hence  may  be  as  familiar 
with  our  minds  as  we  are  with  the  minds 
of  Milton  or  Dante.  A  book  enables 
the  thought  of  one  man  to  reach  all  other 
inquiring  men  in  ages  to  come.  Men 
of  whom  their  world  was  not  worthy 
have  gained  late  recognition  through  their 
books;  men  whose  minds  were  far  in 
advance  of  their  time  have  handed  down 
their  thoughts  in  books  which  have  at 
last    found    appreciative    readers. 

The  printing  press  has  multiplied  enor- 
mously our  means  of  giving  currency  to 
ideas,  but  thought  is  no  more  powerful 
now  than  in  the  time  of  Plato  or  Aristotle. 
Men  like  these  wrote  books  before  the 
time  of  Christ  which  are  still  consulted" 
on  the  subjects  of  which  they  treat. 
Many  of  the  problems  of  life  and  death 
are  as  mysterious  to  us  as  they  were  to 
them. 

Better  than  any  other  relics  the  books 
of    a    nation    show    what    it    really    was. 


The  Miracle  of  Books  13 

The  Dark  Ages  are  called  so  because 
few  books  were  written  in  them,  and  Africa 
is  the  Dark  Continent  because  it  has  no 
literature. 

No  other  works  of  man  have  done 
so  much  to  spiritualize  the  race  as  books. 
The  Laocoon  is  not  as  inspiring  a  creation 
as  the  Iliad,  the  Cologne  Cathedral  is 
not  as  civilizing  as  Dante's  Divine  Comedy, 
and  it  has  been  said  that  the  works  of 
Goethe  have  advanced  the  progress  of 
mankind  more  than  all  the  conquests 
of  Napoleon.  Books  have  more  soul 
than  any  other  human  work.  A  house 
without  books  is  as  dark  as  a  house  with- 
out   windows. 

Literature  is  the  most  enduring  of 
the  fine  arts.  No  painter,  sculptor,  or 
architect  has  erected  so  permanent  a 
memorial  as  the  poets  have  done.  vStatues 
may  be  broken,  pictures  may  fade  or 
be  consumed  by  fire,  even  the  pyramids 
may  crumble  away,  but  the  thought 
contained  in  great  books  such  as  the 
Iliad  and  the  Aeneid  is  more  nearly  eternal 
than  marble  or  bronze.  Lowell's  Com- 
memoration Ode  forms  a  more  durable 
monument  to  Harvard's  dead  heroes  than 


14      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Memorial  Hall.  There  have  been  other 
actions  as  fine  as  the  charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,  but  it  is  only  those  that  the 
great  poets  have  sung  that  are  truly  im- 
mortal in   our  memories. 

"For  deeds  doe  die,  however  noblie  donne, 

And  thoughts  doe  as  themselves  decay; 

But  wise  words,  taught  in  numbers  for  to 

runne, 

Recorded  by  the   Muses  live   for  ay." 

— Spenser. 

Among  the  most  lasting  works  of  men 
are  mosaics;  they  are  not  easily  broken, 
their  colors  do  not  fade  and  their  out- 
lines do  not  grow  dim  with  time.  In 
the  museum  of  the  Capitol  at  Rome 
is  the  famous  mosaic  of  Pliny's  doves, 
rendered  familiar  by  so  many  copies: 
three  or  four  doves  perched  on  a  broad- 
brimmed  cup,  absolutely  as  perfect  in 
form  and  tint  as  when  Pliny  saw  them 
two  thousand  years  ago.  Yet  these  tiny 
bits  of  stone  joined  by  cement  are  not  as 
permanent  as  the  poems  of  Homer 
which  have  as  much  human  interest  to-day 
as  they  had  when  Alexander  read  them 


The  Miracle  of  Books  15 

in  the  intervals  of  his  .pursuit  of  the  Per- 
sians. 

The  plays  of  Shakespeare  will  last  as 
long  as  the  earth  remains,  and  he  said, 

"Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 
Of    princes,    shall    outlive    this    powerful 
rhyme." 

The  love  of  great  books  is  in  itself 
a  miark  of  greatness.  Biography  teaches 
no  more  practical  lesson  than  this;  that 
the  world's  really  noble  men  have  spent 
little  time  in  reading  any  books  but  the 
best,  and  that  there  has  been  a  general 
agreement  among  them  as  to  what  the 
best  books  are.  Socrates  was  familiar 
with  Homer  and  Aesop.  Alexander  slept 
with  Homer  under  his  pillow.  Montaigne 
alludes  constantly  to  the  Bible  and  to 
Cicero,  Virgil,  Horace,  Seneca,  Ovid  and 
other  classical  authors.  Bacon  makes 
frequent  quotations  from  the  Bible  and 
also  shows  a  knowledge  of  Aesop,  Cicero, 
Virgil,  Ovid,  Seneca,  Montaigne  and  other 
great  writers.  Emerson  notes  the  fact 
that  Montaigne  was  in  the  libraries  of 
Shakespeare  and  of  Ben  Jonson.     Emer- 


16      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

son  read  Chaucer,  Montaigne,  Plutarch 
and  Plato  while  at  college  and  knew 
Shakespeare     almost     by     heart. 

When  we  realize  how  few  books  the 
men  of  antiquity  had  we  understand 
that  they  w^ere  obliged  to  read  not  many 
things  but  much.  Homer  probably  had 
no  books  at  all.  Socrates  had  very  few 
and  even  Cicero,  the  accomplished  scholar, 
few  in  comparison  with  a  modem  library. 
He  never  read  Dante  or  Milton  or  Shakes- 
peare. 

The  habit  of  communing  with  great 
thoughts  gives  health  and  vigor  to  the 
mind.  Men  who  habitually  read  the  classics 
have  a  breadth  of  view  and  a  toughness 
of  mental  fibre  which  cannot  be  obtained 
by  those  whose  highest  inspiration  is 
derived  from  the  newspaper  and  the 
last  novel.  Reading  the  best  books  gives 
an  elevation  of  thought  which  raises 
above  the  level  of  common  things,  en- 
nobles and  makes  fine  the  ordinary  daily 
occupations,  dignifies  life  and  makes  it 
worth  living.  The  w^oman  who  keeps 
her  Bible  open  while  she  is  sewing  and 
refreshes  herself  with  the  Psalms  or 
the    Gospels   is   deriving   mental   as   well 


The  Miracle  of  Books  17 

as  spiritual  nourishment;  without  such 
inspiration  her  labor  would  fade  into  the 
light  of  common  day. 

We  need  great  books  to  take  us  out 
of  ourselves,  and  to  show  us  in  true  per- 
spective our  relations  to  the  past,  the 
present  and  the  future.  We  may  find 
from  books  if  we  have  not  learned  from 
our  own  observation  the  true  heroism 
that  is  present  in  the  pain  and  poverty 
and  distress  of  everyday  life.  "Books," 
said  Emerson,  "impart  sympathetic  activ- 
ity to  the  moral  powers.  Go  with  mean 
people  and  you  think  life  is  mean.  Then 
read  Plutarch,  and  the  world  is  a  proud 
place,  peopled  with  men  of  positive  quality, 
with  heroes  and  demigods  standing  around 
us,  who  will  not  let  us  sleep."  Michael 
Angelo  said  "When  I  read  Homer  I  look 
to    see   if    I   am   not   twenty    feet    tall." 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  USE  OF  BOOKS. 

"He  that  shall  make  search  after  know- 
ledge, let  him  seek  it  where  it  is,"  said 
Montaigne    of   books. 

Whatever  your  purpose,  books  will 
help  you  to  accomplish  it.  They  make 
the  knowledge  of  mankind  our  own  if 
we  know  how  to  avail  ourselves  of  them. 
Only  the  wise  can  get  the  best  out  of 
books,  they  refuse  to  deliver  their  message 
to  the  ignorant. 

Next  to  knowing  a  thing  yourself  the 
most  necessary  thing  is  knowing  where 
to  find  it,  and  the  method  of  getting  at 
the  information  which  is  stored  in  books 
is   an   art   that   must   be   acquired. 

It  is  an  education  to  take  up  some  sub- 
ject and  master  it,  examining  all  the  books 
about  it  and  weighing  all  the  varying 
and  conflicting  opinions.  You  never 
realize  the  depth  of  human  knowledge 
and  the  difficulty  of  judging  what  the 
truth  is,  until  you  have  found  out  from 

(18) 


The    Use  of  Books  19 

your  own  experience  the  infinite  labor 
of  mastering  one  small  division  of  one 
subject. 

From  catalogues  and  bibliographies  you 
may  make  a  list  of  the  best  works  on  the 
subject  that  you  are  investigating  and  you 
must  then  quarry  from  these  books  what 
is  of  use  to  you  and  arrange  it  in  a  logical 
and  orderly  way. 

You  need  not  read  all  the  books;  some 
contain  what  you  already  know,  and 
in  many  of  them  there  is  repetition  of 
what  you  have  seen  elsewhere.  You 
glance  through  one  and  find  little  to  the 
purpose,  the  table  of  contents  of  another 
shows  that  here  and  there  is  matter 
that  should  be  looked  over,  at  last  you 
come  to  a  work  by  a  great  man,  a  master 
of  the  subject,  every  word  of  which  must 
be   read  and  pondered   on. 

From  these  books  you  obtain  references 
to  others  that  you  did  not  know  of;  judg- 
ment must  be  shown  in  concentrating 
yourself  on  what  is  of  real  value,  and 
in  not  going  out  of  your  way  to  explore 
alluring  but  useless  by-paths.  When  you 
take  many  notes  in  blank  books  it  is  diffi- 
cult  to   refer   to   them   unless   you   have 


20       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

an  index,  the  making  and  use  of  which 
requires  time,  but  notes  taken  on  one 
side  of  sheets  of  loose  paper  may  easity 
be  sorted  into  large  envelopes  according 
to  the  divisions  of  the  subject,  and  as 
your  investigations  proceed  and  your 
knowledge  widens  new  divisions  may 
readily  be  made.  There  is  a  decided 
advantage  in  having  all  the  notes  of  a 
kind  together  and  when  they  are  on  sep- 
arate pieces  of  paper  they  may  be  pasted 
or  pinned  in  strips  and  their  order  changed 
at  will.  You  may  not  have  your  note 
book  with  you  but  a  bit  of  blank  paper 
can  always  be  obtained.  These  notes 
may  be  a  word  or  two  here  to  remind 
you  of  an  idea,  a  quotation  there,  accur- 
ately copied,  and,  most  important  of  all, 
such  original  thoughts  as  have  occurred 
to  you.  You  will  strengthen  your  mind 
and  also  improve  your  diction,  by  writing 
out  fully  the  ideas  that  occur  to  you  while 
reading.  When  you  do  this,  you  will 
not  read  so  many  books,  but  you  will 
derive  infinitely  more  good  from  those 
you  do  read.  You  will  pay  more  attention 
and  will  be  careful  that  what  you  read 
is  worth  noting. 


The    Use  of  Books  21 

Take  notes  freely  and  as  much  as  poss- 
ible in  your  own  language.  "Writing 
maketh  an  exact  man."  According  to 
Dr.  Watts,  more  is  gained  by  writing  out 
once  than  by  reading  five  times.  What 
you  have  taken  notes  of  is  thereby  fixed 
in  your  mind  and  when  you  have  classi- 
fied your  subject  according  to  its  natural 
divisions  you  have,  in  so  doing,  formed 
new  associations  which  will  help  you  to 
remember    it. 

When  your  materials  are  collected  and 
arranged,  your  work  is  half  done.  What 
remains  requires  a  mental  faculty  of 
a  higher  order: — the  power  of  coordina- 
tion. 

Just  here  the  difference  appears  between 
a  penny-a-liner  and  the  author  of  a  book 
of  permanent  value.  Both  men  may  be 
industrious,  both  may  have  good  ideas, 
but  the  author  has  a  breadth  of  mind 
which  enables  him  to  coordinate  his  know- 
ledge; he  pursues  a  connected  chain 
of  thought  leading  to  definite  conclusions, 
he  has  assimilated  what  he  has  found  in 
books,  reinforced  it  by  his  own  observation 
and  study,   and  the  result  is  a  compact 


22       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

and   organic   whole,    a   material   addition 

to   the    knowledge    of   the    world. 

In  the    Fable  for   Critics,   Lowell  thus 

describes    the    unorderly    worker    among 

books : — 

"'Twould  be  endless  to  tell  you  the  things 
that  he  knew, 

All    separate    facts,    undeniably   true, 

But  with  him  or  each  other  they'd  nothing 
to    do. 

No   power  of   combining,   arranging,    dis- 
cerning. 

Digested    the     masses    he    learned    into 
learning." 

Try  to  see  clearly  the  important  divisions 
of  a  subject,  to  be  fair  minded,  to  draw^ 
your  own  conclusions,  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  probable  and  the  improbable, 
to  recognize  the  good  points  in  each  side 
of  conflicting  theories.  Especially  learn 
to  classify  and  arrange  the  ideas  you  get 
from  books  and  to  unite  them  to  what 
you  already  know. 

If  you  can  enjoy  the  study  of  some 
special  subject  connected  with  your  oc- 
cupation and  keep  at  it  long  enough 
to  make  yourself  master  of  it,  you  may 


The    Use  of  Books  23 

by  so  doing  educate  yourself.  You  should 
not  only  study  the  actual  operations,  but 
you  should  also  familiarize  yourself  with 
what  has  been  written  about  them,  and 
should  make  an  effort  to  record  a  per- 
manent advance  made  by  your  own  ex- 
ertions. 

* 'Knowledge  of  books  in  a  man  of  bus- 
iness, is  as  a  torch  in  the  hands  of  one 
who  is  willing  and  able  to  show  those 
who  are  bewildered  the  way  which  leads 
to  prosperity  and  welfare,"  says  the 
Spectator.  How  much,  for  example,  has 
been  lost  in  treasure  and  energy  because 
politicians  who  have  not  read  history 
and  political  economy,  ignorantly  persist 
in  methods  that  have  failed  ever  since 
the  world  began.  **A  prince  without 
letters,"  said  Ben  Jonson,  "is  a  pilot  with 
out  eyes.  All  his  government  is  groping." 
"It  is  manifest  that  all  government  of 
action  is  to  be  gotten  by  knowledge, 
and  knowledge,  best,  by  gathering  many 
knowledges,  which  is  reading,"  wrote  Sir 
Philip  Sidney. 

When  you  read  a  number  of  books  on 
the  same  topic  each  throws  light  on  the 
other  and  you  get  deeper,  clearer  ideas. 


24       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

You  think  more.  One  subject  studied 
thoroughly  has  more  educational  value 
than  many  looked  at  superficially.  But 
while  there  is  the  greatest  culture  value  in 
taking  up  one  line  of  thought  and  pur- 
suing it  as  far  as  possible,  the  importance 
of  the  broad  foundation  to  build  on  must 
always  be  kept  before  you.  "What  science 
and  practical  life  alike  need  is  not  narrow 
men,  but  broad  men  sharpened  to  a  point," 
says  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 

There  is  no  occupation  where  a  fund 
of  general  information  is  not  valuable, 
provided  it  be  accurate.  The  knowledge 
of  a  little  law  is  as  useful  to  the  doctor 
as  that  of  a  little  medicine  is  to  the  lawyer. 

How  much  more  useful  a  man  is  in 
all  branches  of  his  calling  if  he  knows 
thoroughly  at  least  one  part  of  it.  You 
cannot  do  anything  that  will  add  more 
to  your  value  to  yourself  and  to  the  world 
in  general  than  to  study  your  occupation 
all  your  life.  If  your  work  as  a  student 
ends  with  school  or  college,  your  usef'il- 
ness  will  be  limited  and  you  will  always 
occupy  a  subordinate  position. 

Education  is  a  life  work,  we  have  no 
time  to  waste,  but  we  should  take  time 


The   Use  of  Books  25 

enough  to  do  it  well.  Be  satisfied  with 
a  slow  advance  if  you  are  getting  ahead 
all  the  time,  but  do  not  be  turned  aside 
from   the   track. 

Do  not  make  the  mistake  of  supposing 
that  converse  with  the  thoughts  of  men 
as  preserved  in  books  can  take  the  place 
of  communion  with  living  men.  You 
will  get  warped  and  unreal  ideas  of  life 
if  you  do.  Talk  about  what  you  read 
with  intellectual  people.  We  are  educated 
by  association  with  men,  by  pictures,  by 
music,  by  nature  as  well  as  by  the  study 
of  books.  Commune  with  other  men  but 
do  not  omit  to  commune  with  yourself, 
only  by  so  doing  can  you  gain  ''that  final 
and  higher  product  of  knowledge  which 
we  call  wisdom."  "Read  to  weigh  and 
consider,"  said  Bacon,  that  means  to  think. 
Wordsworth  speaks  of  "knowledge  pur- 
chased with  the  loss  of  power,"  and 
Huxley  says,  "the  great  end  of  life  is 
not  knowledge  but  action.  What  men 
need  is,  as  much  knowledge  as  they  can 
assimilate  and  organize  into  a  basis  for 
action ;  give  them  more  and  it  may  become 
injurious." 


CHAPTER  III. 
CULTIVATING  THE  MEMORY. 

Most  of  us  forget,  as  Andrew  Lang 
says,  "with  an  ease  and  readiness  only 
to  be  acquired  by  practice,"  and  would 
agree  with  Montaigne  that  **if  I  be  a  man 
of  some  reading,  yet  I  am  a  man  of  no 
remembering." 

To  recall  what  we  read  we  must  first 
of  all  pay  attention  to  it.  Attention  has 
been  styled  the  mother  of  memory.  It 
is  naturally  united  to  interest,  we  attend 
best  to  what  we  care  most  about,  but  we 
may  watch  over  our  minds  and  force 
them  to  return  when  they  wander  and 
attention'  may  be  made  habitual  by 
repeated  and  vigorous  efforts  of  the  will. 

"There  must  be  continuity  of  work," 
says  Thomas  A.  Edison,  the  inventor, 
"when  you  set  out  to  do  a  certain  thing 
never  let  anything  disturb  you  from  doing 
that.  This  power  of  putting  the  thought 
on  one  particular  thing,  and  keeping  it 
there  for  hours  at  time,  comes  from  prac- 
(26) 


Cultivating  the  Memory  27 

tice,  and  it  takes  a  long  while  to  get  in 
the  habit.  I  remember,  a  long  while  ago, 
I  could  only  think  ten  minutes  on  a  given 
subject  before  something  else  would  come 
to  my  mind.  But  after  long  practice 
I  can  now  keep  my  mind  for  hours  on  one 
topic  without  being  distracted  with 
thoughs   of  other   matters." 

On  the  other  hand  those  who  find 
difficulty  in  focusing  the  mind  for  long 
periods  of  time  may  be  comforted  by 
the  following  opinion  of  Professor  William 
James  than  whom  there  is  no  better 
authority  on  matters  of  this  kind:  "The 
total  mental  efficiency  of  a  man  is  the 
resultant  of  the  working  together  of  all 
his  faculties.  He  is  too  complex  a  being 
for  any  one  of  them  to  have  the  casting 
vote.  If  any  one  of  them  do  have  the 
casting  vote,  it  is  more  likely  to  be  the 
strength  of  his  desire  and  passion,  the 
strength  of  the  interest  he  takes  in  what 
is  proposed;  concentration,  memory,  rea- 
soning power,  inventiveness,  excellence 
of  the  senses, — all  are  subsidiary  to  this. 
No  matter  how  scatter-brained  the  type 
of  a  man's  successive  fields  of  conscious- 
ness may  be,  if  he  really  care  for  a  subject, 


28      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

he  will  return  to  it  incessantly  from  his 
incessant  wanderings,  and  first,  and  last 
do  more  with  it,  and  get  more  result 
from  it,  than  another  person  w^hose  at- 
tention may  be  more  continuous  during 
a  given  interval,  but  whose  passion  for 
the  subject  is  of  a  more  languid  and  less 
permanent     sort." 

We  must  have  a  clear  idea  of  what  we 
read  if  we  wish  to  retain  it.  We  cannot 
remember  perfectly  what  we  do  not  un- 
derstand. We  must  think  about  what 
we  read,  assimilate  it  and  unite  it  to 
the  knowledge  that  we  already  possess. 
Every  time  we  go  over  it  in  our  minds 
we  make  the  impression  clearer. 

Professor  James  lays  special  stress 
on  the  aid  to  memory  that  is  derived 
by  this  association  of  ideas.  "When 
we  wish  to  fix  a  new  thing  in  either  our 
own  mind  or  a  pupil's,  our  conscious 
effort  should  not  be  so  much  to  impress 
and  retain  it  as  to  connect  it  with  some- 
thing else  already  there.  The  'secret  of 
a  good  memory'  is  thus  the  secret  of 
forming  diverse  and  multiple  associations 
with  every  fact  we  care  to  retain.  But 
this  forming  of  associations  with  a  fact — 


Cultivating  the  Memory  29 

what  is  it  but  thinking  about  the  fact  as 
much  as  possible  ?  Briefly,  then,  of  two 
men  with  the  same  outward  experiences, 
the  one  who  thinks  over  his  experiences 
most,  and  weaves  them  into  the  most 
systematic  relations  with  each  other,  will 
be  the  one  with  the  best  memory." 

When  we  read  a  number  of  books 
on  the  same  subject  the  memory  is  helped 
by  the  association  of  ideas,  and  on  the 
other  hand  we  have  high  authority  for 
the  statement  that  the  memory  is  weakened 
by  aimless  reading.  There  is  perhaps 
no  one  pursuit  in  which  so  much  precious 
time  is  wasted,  no  one  in  which  the  ener- 
gies of  mankind  are  expended  to  so  little 
purpose,  as  in  such  reading.  "Nothing, 
in  truth,"  says  Dugald  Stewart,  "has 
such  a  tendency  to  weaken  not  only  the 
powers  of  invention  but  the  intellectual 
powers  in  general,  as  a  habit  of  extensive 
and  various  reading  without   reflection." 

The  habit  of  sharing  the  results  of 
reading  is  as  useful  to  ourselves  as  it  is 
to  others.  The  scholar  of  whom  Chaucer 
wrote  "gladly  wolde  he  lerne  and  gladly 
teche,"  probably  had  no  difficulty  in  re 
membering   what    he    read. 


30       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

The  reproduction  of  what  you  have 
read  by  conversation  or  by  writing  aids 
the  memory  while  strengthening  the  mind. 

Faraday  says,  *'I  hold  it  as  a  great 
point  in  self-education  that  the  student 
should  be  continually  engaged  in  forming 
exact  ideas,  and  in  expressing  them  clearly 
by  language."  Professor  James  remarks, 
"a  thing  merely  read  or  heard,  and  never 
verbally  reproduced,  contracts  the  weakest 
possible  adhesion  in  the  mind.  Verbal 
recitation  or  reproduction  is  thus  a  highly 
important  kind  of  re-active  behavior  on 
our   impressions." 

Moreover,  while  cultivating  the  memory, 
the  reproduction  of  ideas  from  the  works 
of  writers  like  Addison,  Newman,  and 
Matthew  Arnold  is  valuable  in  the  form- 
ation of  a  clear  and  simple  style.  It 
was  by  careful  reading  of  Addison  and 
by  afterwards  reproducing  the  thought 
in  his  own  language  that  Franklin  when  a 
boy  formed  the  habit  of  elegant  and  exact 
expression  that  made  whatever  he  wrote 
interesting. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WHAT  TO  READ  AND  THE  ABUSE 
OF  BOOKS 

Many  people  live  in  first-class  houses 
stay  at  first-class  hotels,  travel  in  first- 
class  steamships'  and  railway  trains  and 
then  read  third  or  fourth-class  books. 
For  them  one  book  is  about  as  good  as 
another. 

If  one  does  not  care  for  the  world's 
great  books  the  fault  is  in  him,  not  in 
them,  but  he  must  realize  the  vastness 
of  human  knowledge  and  understand 
that  some  of  the  wisest  voices  of  all  time 
have  no  message  for  him. 

There  are  nomadic  readers  who  read 
as  the  g>^psies  live,  camping  everywhere 
but  for  a  night  without  purpose  and  with- 
out profit.  Such  reading  is  mental  dis- 
sipation. Desultory  reading  jumps  from 
one  book  to  another.  You  might  as  well 
try  to  drink  the  sea  as  to  read  all  books. 
You  must  divide  in  order  to  conquer. 
Do  not  read  blindly,  know  what  you  are 

(31) 


32      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

about.  Have  a  definite  aim  and  purpose. 
Do  not  read  the  first  book  that  comes 
to  hand  but  when  you  hear  of  a  book  that 
you  ought  to  read  make  a  note  of  it.  By 
keeping  a  list  of  books  you  may  shape 
your  course  and  make  your  reading 
a  selection  from  a  selection. 

Do  not  prefer  the  new  -to  the  meritor- 
ious; by  following  Emerson's  advice  "read 
no  book  until  it  has  been  out  a  year," 
you  will  avoid  many  loud-trumpeted 
books.  There  is  uncertainty  in  reading 
a  new  book,  but  the  value  of  the  old 
books  is  well  known.  We  need  make  no 
mistake. 

Many  of  the  oldest  books  are  always 
new  but  there  are  books  which  were 
once  standards  on  historical  and  technical 
subjects  that  are  now  as  out  of  date  as 
last  year's  almanac.  Be  sure  that  what 
you  read  is  reliable  and  the  best  of  its 
kind.  Prefer  quality  to  quantity.  Read 
the  great  books  for  yourself  and  do  not 
be  content  with  reading  other  people's 
impressions  of  them.  Books  about  books 
are  seldom  useful  unless  one  has  also 
read   the   works   of   which  they   treat. 


What  to  Read  33 

Let  the  books  that  you  select  be  those 
that  have  the  approval  of  men  competent 
to  judge,  but  bear  in  mind  that  the  wisest 
man  cannot  select  the  books  that  will 
best  suit  others;  each  must  choose  for 
himself.  People  are  always  glad  to  recom- 
mend the  books  that  have  helped  them 
but  they  cannot  tell  whether  such  books 
will  help  you.  You  must  find  out  for 
yourself,  no  one  else  can  do  it  for  you. 
Do  not  be  afraid  to  ask  anyone  who  knows 
more  than  you  do.  There  is  no  information 
which  people  are  so  ready  to  give  as 
about  books,  indeed  when  you  ask  them 
they  feel  flattered.  When  Franklin  wish- 
ed to  make  friends  with  a  man  that  he 
suspected  of  hostile  sentiments  he  bor- 
rowed a  book  of  him  and  returned  it 
promptly. 

To  find  out  what  the  best  books  are 
is  no  difficult  matter,  but  to  find  out 
what  are  the  best  books  for  us  requires 
a  self-knowledge  that  takes  life-long  study. 
In  reading  we  must  feel  our  way,  we 
cannot  tell  what  is  best  for  us  all  at  once. 
We  need  to  get  acquainted  with  our  own 
minds,  to  learn  what  our  powers  and 
tastes  are.     This  takes  time  and  thought 


34       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

and,  more  than  all,  fair-mindedness  in 
order  that  we  may  not  form  too  high  or 
too  low  an  estimate  of  our  abilities.  "If 
thou  wouldst  profit  by  thy  reading,  read 
humbly,  simply,  honestly,  and  not  de- 
siring to  win  a  character  for  learning," 
said  Thomas  a  Kempis. 

Have  a  clear  view  of  literature,  know 
what  you  like  and  why  you  like  it.  Be 
honest  with  yourself,  do  not  pretend 
to  like  what  you  do  not  because  other 
people  do.  Do  not  be  afraid  to  be  ignorant 
of  many  things,  it  is  the  price  you  must 
pay  for  knowing  a  few  things  well.  It 
is  only  the  stupid  who  pretend  to  know 
what  they  do  not.  An  educated  man  is 
not  ashamed  to  say  that  he  does  not  know. 
"The  acknowledgment  of  ignorance,"  said 
Montaigne,  "is  one  of  the  best  and  surest 
testimonies  of  judgment  that  I  can  finde." 
To  know  when  you  do  know  a  thing 
and  when  you  do  not,  is  the  first  step 
towards  the  attainment  of  sound  scholar- 
ship, and  the  next  is  to  know  where  to 
go  for  information.  "Nothing  is  so  pro- 
lific  as   a   little   known   well." 

To  have  a  general  idea  of  what  is  worth 
reading  and  to  know  where  to  turn  for 


What  to  Read  35 

the  books  which  are  of  vital  importance 
to  one's  development  must  be  the  founda- 
tion of  any  plan  for  culture.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  useful  results  of  a  liberal 
education  that  it  gives  a  broad  view 
of  the  whole  range  of  human  thought, 
and  shows  what  to  consider  and  what 
to  reject;  it  teaches  to  distinguish  as 
Lowell  says  between  literature  and  printed 
matter. 

Follow  the  bent  of  your  inclination 
but  make  a  clear  distinction  between 
the  reading  that  you  do  with  a  purpose 
and  that  which  you  do  for  pleasure, 
"what  we  read  with  inclination  makes 
a  strong  impression.  What  we  read  as 
a  task  is  of  little  use,"  said  Doctor  Johnson, 
and  he  added  "if  we  read  without  inclina- 
tion, half  the  mind  is  employed  in  fixing 
the  attention,  so  there  is  but  one  half 
to  be  employed  on  what  we  read." 

Much  energy  is  wasted  by  conscientious 
readers  over  classic  books  that  are  beyond 
their  capacity.  Plato  and  Aristotle  are 
among  the  greatest  thinkers  that  the 
world  has  produced  but  their  works 
are  not  within  the  comprehension  of 
every  mind.     Indeed  Emerson  says  that, 


36       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

"There  are  not  in  the  world  at  any  one 
time  more  than  a  dozen  persons  who  read 
and  understand  Plato." 
/  Do  not  think  that  because  a  statement 
is  in  print  it  is  necessarily  true.  You  will 
often  find  conflicting  statements  in  dif- 
ferent books  on  the  same  subject.  "Some 
books  are  lies  frae  end  to  end,"  said 
Burns.  Fortunately  this  can  be  said 
of  few  books  but  many  contain  inaccur- 
acies, mis-statements  and  exaggerations. 
Weigh  and  consider  all  you  read  in  the 
light  of  your  own  experience.  Books 
like  life  of  which  they  are  expressions 
and  authors  who  produce  them  are  of  all 
kinds,  good  and  bad,  uplifting  and  de- 
grading, true  and  false.  We  must  value 
them  for  what  they  are,  not  for  what 
they  pretend  to  be,  and,  setting  aside  our 
own  preconceptions  and  prejudices,  lay 
our  minds  open  to  those  who  seriously 
and  sincerely  hold  other  views  than 
ours. 

The  author  tries  to  make  us  feel  what 
he  feels  and  see  what  he  sees.  Some 
can  do  this  without  effort  on  our  part 
and  others  like  cuttle  fish  cover  them- 
selves with  clouds  of  their  own  obscurity. 


What  to  Read  37 

We  soon  learn  from  the  way  a  writer 
expresses  himself  whether  he  is  accurate 
or  not  and  we  depend  upon  those  whom 
we  find  careful  in  making  their  statements. 
'  We  get  to  love  and  trust  authors  as 
we  get  to  know  our  friends  by  long  and 
familiar  converse.  The  writers  we  should 
know  best,  with  whose  lives  and  com- 
plete works  we  should  make  ourselves 
familiar  are  those  who  have  beauty  of 
character  added  to  grace  of  expression. 
Some  men  like  Bums  and  Goldsmith 
endear  themselves  to  us  in  spite  of  pro- 
nounced   weaknesses. 

Books  give  pleasure  not  only  by  what 
they  contain  but  also  by  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  expressed.  Beauty  of  lan- 
guage as  well  as  of  thought  make  the  works 
of  Cardinal  Newman  and  Matthew  Arnold 
attractive  whether  we  agree  with  their 
conclusions  or  not  and  whether  the  sub- 
jects of  which  they  treat  are  of  interest 
to   us   or   not. 

Milton  tells  us  that  we  should  have 
a  vigilant  eye  how  books  demean  them- 
selves. There  is  in  some  ways  more  dan- 
ger from  evil  books  than  from  evil  compa- 
ions.     Bad    companions    cannot  be   with 


38       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

us  always  and  bad  books  may  be.  Schop- 
enhauer calls,  "bad  books,  those  exuberant 
weeds  of  literature  that  choke  the  true 
com,"  and  even  the  gentle  Charles  Lamb 
speaks  with  contempt  of  "things  in  books' 
clothing."  The  only  use  of  poor  books 
is  to  teach  us  by  comparison  the  value 
of  good  ones.  Rousseau  thought  that 
"the  abuse  of  reading  is  destructive  to 
knowledge.  Imagining  ourselves  to  know 
everything  we  read,  we  conceive  it  unneces- 
sary to  learn  it  by  other  means." 

"Literature  is  not  shut  up  in  books 
nor  art  in  galleries:  both  are  taken  in  by 
unconscious  absorption  through  the  finer 
pores  of  mind  and  character  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  society, "said  Lowell;  and 
Emerson  wrote,  books  are  for  the  scholar's 
idle  times:  when  he  can  read  God  directly, 
the  hour  is  too  precious  to  be  wasted 
in  other  men's  transcripts  of  their  readings 
But  when  the  intervals  of  darkness 
come,  as  come  they  must, — when  the 
sun  is  hid  and  the  stars  withdraw  their 
shining, — we  repair  to  the  lamps  which 
were  kindled  by  their  ray,  to  guide  our 
steps  to  the  East  again,  where  the  dawn 
is." 


What  to  Read  39 

"No  man  should  consider  so  highly  of 
himself  as  to  think  he  can  receive  but  little 
light  from  books,  nor  so  meanly  as  to  be- 
lieve he  can  discover  nothing  but  what 
is  to  be  learned  from  them."  wrote  Doctor 
Johnson,  and  Professor  Blackie  says^ 
**all  knowledge  which  comes  from  books 
comes  indirectly,  by  reflection,  and  by 
echo;  true  knowledge  grows  from  a  living 
root  in  the  thinking  soul;  and  whatever 
it  may  appropriate  from  without,  it  takes 
by  living  assimilation  into  a  living  organ- 
ism, not  by  mere  borrowing."  . 


;   '  CHAPTER  V. 

THE  ART  OF  READING. 

'^^The  most  important  step  toward  get- 
ting mental  power  is  the  acquisition  of 
a  right  method  in  work  and  a  just  standard 
•of  attainment,"  says  President  Elliot. 
The  secret  of  success  in  reading  is  con- 
centration. The  mind  must  be  focused 
like  a  lens  on  just  those  books  and  just 
those  parts  of  them  that  are  needed  to 
accomplish  the  desired  object.  Have  a 
definite  purpose  and  do  not  allow  yourself 
to  be  turned  aside  from  it.  There  are 
those  who  read  merely  to  get  over  a 
certain  number  of  pages  and  say  that 
they  have  read  a  book.  Printed  words 
run  before  their  eyes  and  make  no  im- 
pression on  their  minds.  In  this  age  of 
hurry  many  rush  through  books  as  trains 
rush  through  tunnels. 

The  true  reader  makes  his  reading  give 
an  account  of  itself.  After  you  have  read 
a  few  pages  stop  and  think  it  over  and 
arrange  it  in  your  mind.  It  takes  time 
to  ripen,  the  best  growth  is  slow. 
(40) 


The  Art  of  Reading  41 

We  can  no  more  become  acquainted 
with  a  book  on  a  single  reading  than  we 
can  know  a  man  on  a  single  meeting. 
"Between  reading  and  study  there  is 
the  same  difference  as  between  a  guest 
and  a  friend,"  said  St.  Bernard.  Ruskin 
thought  that  reading  the  same  thing  over 
and  over  again  aided  him  greatly  in 
getting  thoroughly  to  the  bottom  of  mat- 
ters; and  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris  has  remarked, 
"it  is  my  experience  with  great  world 
poets  that  the  first  reading  yields  the 
smallest  harvest.  Each  succeeding  read- 
ing becomes  more  profitable  in  geometri- 
cal ratio.  At  first,  Dante's  Divine  Comedy 
was  a  dumb  show  written  over  with  hard, 
dogmatic  inscriptions.  It  has  become  to 
me  the  most  eloquent  exposition  of  human 
freedom  and   divine  grace." 

Bacon  tells  us  that  books  are  to  be  read 
in  different  ways.  Some  are  to  be  read 
here  and  there,  others  to  be  skimmed 
and  a  few  to  be  studied.  Be  content  with 
gradual  progress,  the  best  growth  is  slow, 
but  keep  constantly  at  it.  Milton  speaks 
of  "industrious  and  select  reading,"  and 
that  is  the  only  kind  that  gives  true 
culture. 


42       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Says  Walt  Whitman,  "the  process  of 
reading  is  not  a  half  sleep,  but  in  the  high- 
est sense,  an  exercise,  a  gymnastic  strug- 
gle; that  the  reader  is  to  do  something 
for  himself,  must  be  on  the  alert,  must 
himself  or  herself  construct  indeed  the 
poem,  argument,  history,  metaphysical 
essay — the  text  furnishing  the  hints,  the 
clue,    the    start   or   framework." 

"Men  give  me  some  credit  for  genius. 
All  the  genius  I  have  lies  in  this:  when 
I  have  a  subject  in  hand  I  study  it  pro- 
foundly; day  and  night  it  is  before  me. 
I  explore  it  in  all  its  bearings.  My  mind 
becomes  pervaded  with  it.  Then  the  ef- 
fort which  I  make  the  people  are  pleased 
to  call  the  fruit  of  genius.  It  is  the  fruit 
of  labor  and   thought." — Daniel  Webster. 

We  must  recognize  the  fact  that  there 
are  many  books  of  great  value  to  others 
that  have  no  message  for  us.  We  may 
waste  time  in  reading  good  books  that 
we  do  not  understand.  'It  is  of  para- 
mount importance,"  says  Schopenhauer, 
"to  acquire  the  art  not  to  read." 

Books  should  be  ladders  to  lift  us  to 
a  higher  mental  plane.     No  matter  how 


The  Art  of  Reading  43 

long  or  how  industriously  we  read,  we 
can  never  be  elevated  by  trash.  The 
more  literature  we  ponder  on  and  make 
our  own  the  better  we  are  for  it,  but  the 
little  thoughts  of  inferior  men  though 
they  may  serve  to  occupy  our  minds 
can  never  improve  them.  And  on  the 
other  hand  the  habit  of  associating  with 
the  thoughts  of  noble  men  gives  health 
and  robustness  to  the  mind,  which  does 
not  grow  unless  it  is  exerted  on  something 
worthy    of    its    strength. 

The  books  that  help  us  most  are  those 
which  demand  the  exercise  of  our  highest 
powers,  books  which  have  a  clear  and 
definite  purpose  and  that  appeal  to  the 
best  that  is  in  us.  Such  books  are  not  to 
be  understood  all  at  once,  but  every  time 
we  re-read  them  we  get  new  light  upon 
them.  We  should  not  force  ourselves 
to  read  what  we  do  not  understand,  but 
should  read  the  best  that  we  can  enjoy 
and  if  that  is  not  the  best  there  is,  it  will 
be  in  time  if  we  persevere. 

No  other  occupation  is  so  well  adapted 
to  the  profitable  employment  of  moments 
of  leisure  as  reading.  At  any  place,  at 
any  time,   without   preparation   we   may 


44       How  to  Make  ths  Moet  of  Books 

read.  Books  are  always  ready  to  do 
for  us  all  that  our  mental  state  willadmit. 
No  man  was  ever  so  wretched  that  he 
could  not  claim  and  receive  the  compan- 
ship  and  sympathy  of  the  best  thought 
of  the  best  men.  No  life  is  so  cheerless 
that   it  cannot  be    brightened   by   books. 

Doctor  Johnson  thought  that  the  most 
miserable  man  is  he  who  cannot  read  on 
a  rainy  day.  How  much  those  miss 
who  have  no  love  of  reading,  how  time 
must  hang  heavily  on  their  hands  in  illness, 
in  bad  weather,  in  the  long  evenings. 
Emerson  liked  to  read  and  study  in  a 
tumultuous  privacy  of  storm. 

Reading  is  often  the  only  pleasure  of 
the  sick,  bringing  to  their  rooms  the 
heroes  of  all  ages  and  the  scenes  of  all 
climes  so  that  they  may  forget  their 
sufferings  in  sailing  the  ocean  with  Colum- 
bus, or  leaving  the  smoke  and  turmoil  of 
the  city  they  may  wander  with  Thoreau 
in  leafy  nooks  by  the  crystal  waters  of 
Walden.  Sitting  in  a  poor  room,  ill-fed 
and  ragged  a  man  may  entertain  Sir 
Walter  Scott  or  Lord  Macaulay  and 
dismiss  them  without  ceremony  when  he 
tires    of    them.     The    fact    that    we    can 


The  Art  of  Reading  45 

stop  the  talk  of  a  book  at  will  is  one  of 
the  greatest  advantages  of  reading.  Lord 
Macaulay  might  have  bored  one  but  his 
books  never  do. 

Reading  is  the  great  solace  of  old  age 
and  is  one  of  the  few  pleasures  which 
increases  as  the  years  go  by. 

Life  should  be  a  happy  medium  between 
the  practical  and  the  ideal;  those  suc- 
cessful men  of  business  who  have  no 
taste  for  literature  often  appreciate  their 
deficiencies  quite  as  much  as  do  the 
impractical  idealists  who  have  never  ac- 
compHshed  anything  of  real  value.  Dar- 
win devoted  his  mental  energies  so  en- 
tirely to  the  consideration  of  facts,  that 
he  lost  all  taste  for  imaginative  literature 
and  deeply  regretted  that  his  mind  in 
this  respect  was  warped  and  one   sided. 

There  are,  however,  many  men  who 
have  become  so  dulled  by  the  practical- 
ities of  business  that  they  consider  it  a 
waste  of  time  to  read  anything  but  the 
newspapers  or  the  reports  of  the  stock 
market.  The  pleasure  to  be  gotten  from 
Shakespeare  or  Tennyson  such  persons 
will  never  know. 


46      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Lack  of  time  is  made  an  excuse  for 
superficial  accomplishment,  but  no  one 
is  so  busy  that  he  cannot  find  time  to 
read  if  he  will  but  diligently  make  the 
most  of  his  opportunities.  "Dost  thou 
value  life,"  said  Franklin,  "then  do  not 
waste  time  for  that  is  the  stuff  life  is 
made  of."  "In  studies  whatsoever  a 
man  commandeth  upon  himself,  let  him 
set  hours  for  it,"  says  Bacon,  but,  he 
adds,  "whatsoever  is  agreeable  to  his 
nature,  let  him  take  no  care  for  any 
set  hours,  for  his  thoughts  will  fly  to 
it  of  themselves." 

A  small  fixed  period  devoted  to  study 
every  day  is  far  better  than  a  longer  time 
given  occasionally.  The  result  is  not 
only  greater  but  the  mental  effect  is 
better.  For  by  devoting  a  certain  time 
every  day  to  the  consideration  of  noble 
thoughts  your  mind  which  grows  by  what 
it  feeds  on  is  given  food  for  reflection 
so  that  it  increases  in  power  even  when 
you  are  not  reading. 

There  are  books  not  only  for  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  but  also  for  all 
the  varying  circumstances  of  the  life  of 
each    and    for    all    the    different    mental 


The  Art  of  Reading  47 

phases  through  which  they  may  pass. 
A  book  may  have  a  message  for  every 
one  but  not  the  same  message  for  each; 
one  it  may  encourage,  another  it  may 
rebuke;  one  it  may  lead  further  in  the 
path  he  is  treading,  another  it  may  stop 
and  turn  into  a  better  way.  Habits  of 
thought  due  to  inheritance  or  occupation 
modify  and  in  some  measure  determine 
the  effect  of  a  book  and  the  nature  of 
its  message  for  each  reader. 

You  should  adapt  books  to  your  mental 
state,  after  a  hard  day's  work  the  mind 
easily  wearies,  while  with  the  strength 
of  the  morning  you  may  read  the  very 
best  that  you  are  capable  of.  Read  the 
hardest  book  first  and  as  your  mind  tires 
lay  it  aside  and  take  up  something  easier. 
When  you  find  that  you  are  not  appre- 
ciating what  you  read  stop  and  give  your 
mind   a   rest. 

What  we  read  depends  upon  our  taste 
and  taste  determines  character  and  is 
determined  by  character.  Taste  may  be 
cultivated  and  improved  by  always  pre- 
ferring the  higher  to  the  lower  when 
we  have  an  opportunity  to  make  a  choice, 
by  improving  the   surroundings   and   as- 


48       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

sociations,  by  unconscious  influence  as 
well  as  by  conscious  effort.  There  is 
only  one  way  in  which  a  love  for  good 
literature  may  be  gained  and  that  is  by 
reading  good  literature.  People  talk  a- 
bout  the  English  classics  and  at  last  almost 
convince  themselves  that  they  are  familiar 
with  them  but  how  many  do  you  know 
who    have    really    read    Shakespeare? 

There  are  constant  allusions  in  literature 
and  in  life  to  books  with  which  everyone 
is  supposed  to  be  acquainted,  Ruch  as 
the  Bible,  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  Scott  and  Longfellow.  One  can- 
not always  choose  his  business  in  life, 
sometimes  he  is  forced  to  do  the  first 
thing  that  comes  to  hand,  but  he  need  not 
engage  in  any  recreation  that  he  does 
not  choose  and  it  is  his  own  fault  if  his 
pleasures  are  mean  ones.  We  often  meet 
people  whose  minds  seem  flat  and  stale 
because  they  derive  their  highest  in- 
spiration from  nothing  more  elevating 
than  the  daily  papers. 

A  common  knowledge  of  a  good  book 
may  be  at  once  the  foundation  of  mutual 
understanding  and  friendship.  It  es- 
tablishes   a   bond   of   sympathy   between 


The  Art  of  Reading  49 

minds  cultivated  and  informed  by  contact 
with  noble  thoughts.  Such  sympathy 
is  impossible  for  those  whose  minds 
owing  to  lack  of  reading  dwell  ever  in 
the  present  amid  material  things. 

Do  not  content  yourself  with  reading 
the  observations  of  others;  be  an  observer 
yourself.  Your  reading  should  teach  you 
to  observe,  but  some  persons  stultif}'' 
themselves  so  by  constant  reading  that 
they  lose  the  power  to  perceive.  Our 
minds  grow  by  exertion  rather  than  by 
passive  reception.  We  are  put  in  the 
world  not  only  to  accomplish  a  certain 
amount  of  work,  but  also  to  develop  our 
mental  and  spiritual  powers  to  the  full- 
est extent;  to  make  the  most  of  ourselves. 

By  taking  an  interest  in  what  is  going 
on  around  us  we  may  add  a  new  charm  to 
life.  We  are  surrounded  by  the  wonder- 
ful and  inspiring  but  only  the  great  man 
or  woman  has  the  sense  to  see  it;  for  all 
the  rest  life  is  hopelessly  commonplace. 
The  man  who  finds  the  most  to  admire 
gets  the  most  enjoyment  out  of  life. 
The  study  of  nature  teaches  us  to  appre- 
ciate much  that  is  beautiful  in  literature, 
and,   on  the   other  hand,   books   help   us 


50       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

to  enjoy  many  things  about  us  that  other- 
wise we  should  not  have  noticed.  Men 
with  finer  faculties  than  ourselves  have 
observed  and  recorded  for  us  beauties 
that  without  their  aid  we  should  have 
been  unable  to  perceive.  * 'Books,'  said 
Dry  den,  "are  spectacles  to  read  nature." 
The  power  of  a  book  to  stimulate  the 
mind  is  one  of  its  most  useful  qualities 
Some  books  are  more  valuable  for  what 
they  make  us  think  than  for  what  they 
actually  say.  It  is  the  reading  that  we 
make  the  most  of,  whose  substance  incor- 
porates itself  with  our  mental  equipment, 
that  develops  and  enlarges  our  faculties. 
What  we  read  and  assimilate  becomes 
part  of  the  character.  Rousseau's  Emile, 
for  instance,  is  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
books  ever  written;  Pestalozzi,  Froebel, 
Herbert  Spencer  and  many  other  educa- 
tional thinkers  have  derived  their  in- 
spiration from  Rousseau.  Emerson  is  es- 
pecially valuable  for  the  new  trains  of 
thought  which  he  suggests.  Furthermore 
a  book  is  far  from  useless  when  it  arouses 
thoughtful  dissent.  Passages  in  the  Emile 
have   furnished  the  texts  for  discussions 


The  Art  of  Reading  51 

that  have  marked  advances  in  educational 
thought. 

We  form  our  characters  from  the  men 
and  books  that  we  associate  with.  We 
cannot  always  choose  our  companions 
but  we  can  choose  our  books,  and  it  is 
our  own  fault  if  they  are  mean  books. 
A  man  may  be  known  better  by  the 
books  he  reads  than  by  the  company  he 
keeps,  we  should  be  quite  as  likely  to 
find  a  judge  making  a  companion  of  a 
pickpocket  or  gambler  as  to  find  a  low- 
minded  man  reading  an  essay  by  Lowell 
or  Emerson.  Tell  me  what  you  read  and 
I  will  tell  you  what  you  are.  It  is  what 
we  take   an  interest   in  that   stamps  us. 

Matthew  Arnold  gives  a  concise  defini- 
tion of  culture  when  he  says  that  it  is 
"to  know  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  said  in  the  world,"  and  he  makes  this 
idea  clearer  by  saying  "culture  is  reading, 
but  reading  with  a  purpose  to  guide  it 
and  with  system."  He  elsewhere  states, 
"Culture  is  a  study  of  the  perfection 
which  consists  in  becoming  something 
rather  than  in  having  something,  in  an 
inward  condition  of  the  mind  and  spirit, 
not  in  an  outward  set  of  circumstances." 


52  How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Self-activity  is  called  by  Sir  William 
Hamilton  the  primary  principle  of  educa- 
tion. By  lovingly  reading  the  best  books 
we  may  go  on,  year  after  year,  giving 
ourselves  a  fuller  education  than  can  be 
gained  in  any  university,  because  it  is 
life  long; — eternity  long.  Such  an  educa- 
tion requires  time  rather  than  money 
and  any  one  who  has  the  determination 
to  improve  himself,  may  like  Sir  William 
Jones  **with  the  fortune  of  a  peasant 
give  himself  the  education  of  a  prince." 
To  read  good  books  in  a  proper  manner 
adds  to  life  a  charm  whose  infinite  var- 
iety age  cannot  wither  nor  custom  stale. 
It  was  Huxley,  the  man  of  science  who 
said,  "literature  is  the  greatest  of  all 
sources  of  refined  pleasure  and  one  of  the 
great  uses  of  a  liberal  education  is 
to  enable  us  to  enjoy  that  pleasure." 
The  gain  is  immense  when  we  have  learned 
to  like  the  things  that  are  improving 
rather  than  those  that  merely  entertain. 
The  remark  of  Samuel  Royce  that  when- 
ever intellectual  pleasures  are  in  the  as- 
cendant civilization  progresses,  and  when- 
ever sensual  pleasures  predominate  civiliza- 
on  is  on  the  wane,    is  as  true  of  the  indi- 


The  Art  of  Reading  53 

vidual  as  of  the  race.  The  nations  which 
have  made  an  impression  on  history  have 
done  so  by  intellectual  vigor  and  not 
by  brute  force.  It  is  ideas  not  arms  that 
determine  destinies  and  books  are  the 
vehicle   of   ideas. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
CLASSIFICATION  OF  BOOKS. 

The  multitude  of  books  impresses  on 
us  the  shortness  of  human  life,  and  immor- 
tality never  seems  more  desirable  and 
necessary  than  in  the  presence  of  a  library. 

The  national  library  of  France  contains 
about  three  million  books  and  the  British 
Museum  requires  forty  miles  of  shelves 
to  accommodate  its  two  million  volumes. 
The  room  which  contains  the  card  cat- 
alogue of  the  nine  hundred  thousand  books 
of  the  Boston  Public  Library  is  as  large 
as  the  entire  space  of  many  a  village 
library. 

According  to  the  purposes  for  which 
they  have  been  written  books  may  be 
divided  broadly  into  three  classes.  In 
the  first  place  we  have  books  intended 
to  convey  information.  This  class  is 
very  numerous  as  it  includes  histories, 
biographies,  travels,  text  books  and  works 
on  technical  subjects. 
(54) 


Classification  of  Books  55 

The  second  class  comprises  those  writ- 
ten to  amuse,  and  consists  mainly  of  works 
of  fiction.  This  is  also  numerous,  for 
it  constitutes  the  chief  mental  nourisment 
of  the  greater  number  of  readers.  It  is 
estimated  that  novels  form  fully  three- 
fourths  of  the  books  issued  by  circulating 
libraries. 

The  last  class  is  composed  of  books 
written  to  inspire,  to  which  belong 
works  of  the  sacred  writers  and  of  the 
great  poets.  Such  books  are  comparative- 
ly few  in  number,  but  they  include  much 
of  the  noblest  work  of  the  noblest  men 
whom  the  world  has  known. 

These  three  divisions  are  not  separated 
by  hard  and  fast  lines;  Hawthorne's  Marble 
Faun,  for  example,  at  once  entertains, 
informs  and  inspires,  while,  fortunately 
for  us  all,  the  number  of  books  that  amuse 
and  at  the  same  time  instruct  is  sufficient 
to  supply  pleasure  and  profit  for  the 
longest  life   and  the   most  varied  tastes. 

There  is  of  course  still  another  class 
of  books  that  are  no  books,  works  of  this 
kind  far  outnumber  all  the  others  put  to- 
gether, and  it  requires  constant  care  in 
order  to  avoid  them. 


56       How  to  Make  the  Most  o^  Books 

'Throw  away  none  of  your  time,'* 
says  Lord  Chesterfield,  **upon  those  trivial 
futile  books,  published  for  the  amusement 
of  idle  and  ignorant  readers;  such  sort 
of  books  swarm  and  buzz  about  one  every 
day;  flop  them  away, — ^they  have  no 
sting." 

Ruskin  calls  attention  to  the  difference 
between  books  written  to  render  thought 
permanent  such  as  great  poems  and  his- 
tories, books  of  all  time  he  calls  them, 
and  books  written  merely  for  the  hour, 
the  useful  or  pleasant  talk  of  some  person 
you  cannot  otherwise  converse  with,  such 
as  travels  and  novels  which  he  says  are 
not  books  at  all  but  merely  letters  or  news- 
papers in  print. 

"A  book,"  he  says,  "is  essentially  not 
a  talked  thing,  but  a  written  thing;  and 
written,  not  with  the  view  of  mere  com- 
munication, but  of  permanence.  The  book 
of  talk  is  printed  only  because  its  author 
cannot  speak  to  thousands  of  people  at 
once ;  if  he  could,  he  would — the  volume 
is  mere  multiplication  of  his  voice.  You 
cannot  talk  to  your  friend  in  India;  if 
you  could,  you  would;  you  write  instead; 
that  is  mere  conveyance  of  voice.     But  a 


Classification  of  Books  57 

book  is  written,  not  to  multiply  the 
voice  merely,  not  to  carry  it  merely,  but 
to  preserve  it.  The  author  has  something 
to  say  which  he  perceives  to  be  true  and 
useful,  or  helpfully  beautiful.  In  the  sum 
of  his  life  he  finds  this  to  be  the  thing, 
or  group  of  things,  manifest  to  him: — 
this  is  the  piece  of  true  knowledge,  or 
sight,  which  his  share  of  sunshine  and 
earth  has  permitted  him  to  seize.  He 
would  fain  set  it  down  forever;  engrave 
it  on  rock,  if  he  could;  saying.   This  is 

the  best  of  me ; this  I  saw  and  knew ; 

this,  if  anything  of  mine,  is  worth  your 
memory.'  That  is  his  'writing';  it  is, 
in  his  small  human  way,  and  with  what- 
ever degree  of  true  inspiration  is  in  him, 
his  inscription,  or  scripture.  That  is  a 
'Book'." 

DeQuincey  has  made  a  very  famous 
division  of  books,  which  I  quote  at  length 
because  though  often  referred  to,  it  is 
seldom  seen  in  its  entirety.  He  says: 
"There  is  the  literature  of  knowledge  and 
there  is  the  literature  of  power.  The 
function  of  the  first  is  to  teach',  the  func- 
tion of  the  second  is  to  move.  The  first 
is  a  rudder;  the  second,  an  oar  or  a  sail. 


58       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

The  first  speaks  to  the  mere  discursive 
understanding;  the  second  speaks,  ulti- 
mately it  may  happen,  to  the  higher 
understanding  or  reason,  but  always 
through  affections  of  pleasure  and  sym- 
pathy. 

"Remotely,  it  may  travel  towards  an 
object  seated  in  what  Lord  Bacon  calls 
dry  light;  but,  proximately,  it  does  and 
must  operate,  else  it  ceases  to  be  a  literature 
of  power,  on  and  through  that  humid 
light  which  clothes  itself  in  the  mists  and 
glittering  iris  of  human  passions,  desire 
and  genial  emotions. 

"Men  have  so  little  reflected  on  the 
higher  functions  of  literature,  as  to  find 
it  a  paradox  if  one  should  describe  it  as 
a  mean  or  subordinate  purpose  of  books 
to  give  information.  But  this  is  a  paradox 
only  in  the  sense  which  makes  it  honorable 
to  be  paradoxical.  Whenever  we  talk 
in  ordinary  language  of  seeking  informa- 
tion, or  gaining  knowledge,  we  understand 
the  words  as  connected  with  something 
of  absolute  novelty.  But  it  is  the  gran- 
deur of  all  truth,  which  can  occupy  a  very 
high  place  in  human  interests,  that  it 
is  never  absolutely  novel  in  the  meanest 


Classification  of  Books  59 

minds;  it  exists  eternally  by  way  of  germ 
or  latent  principle  in  the  lowest  as  in  the 
highest,  needing  to  be  developed  but  never 
planted.  To  be  capable  of  transplanta- 
tion is  the  immediate  criterion  of  a  truth 
that  ranges  on  a  lower  scale.  Besides 
which,  there  is  a  rarer  thing  than  truth, 
namely,  power,  or  deep  sympathy  with 
truth.  What  is  the  effect,  for  instance, 
upon  society,  of  children?  By  the  pity, 
by  the  tenderness,  and  by  the  peculiar 
modes  of  admiration,  which  connect  them 
selves  with  the  helplessness,  with  the 
innocence,  and  with  the  simplicity  of 
children,  not  only  are  the  primal  affections 
strengthened  and  continually  renewed, 
but  the  qualities  which  are  dearest  in  the 
sight  of  heaven — the  frailty,  for  instance, 
which  appeals  to  forbearance,  the  innocence 
which  symbolizes  the  heavenly,  and  the 
simplicity  which  is  most  alien  from  the 
worldly,  are  kept  up  in  perpetual  remem- 
brance, and  their  ideals  are  continually 
refreshed.  A  purpose  of  the  same  nature 
is  answered  by  the  higher  literature, 
viz: — ^the    literature    of    power. 

"What    do    you    learn    from    Paradise 
Lost}     Nothing    at    all.     What    do    you 


60       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

learn  from  a  cookery-book?  Something 
new — something  that  you  did  not  know 
before,  in  every  paragraph.  But  would 
you  therefore  put  the  wretched  cookery- 
book  on  a  higher  level  of  estimation  than 
the  divine  poem?  What  you  owe  to  Mil- 
ton is  not  any  knowledge,  of  which  a  mil- 
lion separate  items  are  still  but  a  million 
of  advancing  steps  on  the  same  earthly 
level;  what  you  owe  is  power,  that  is 
exercise  and  expansion  to  your  own 
latent  capacity  of  sympathy  with  the  in- 
finite, where  every  pulse  and  each  separate 
influx  is  a  step  upwards — a  step  ascending 
as  upon  a  Jacob's  ladder  from  earth  to 
mysterious  altitudes  above  the  earth. 
All  the  steps  of  knowledge,  from  first  to 
last,  carry  you  further  on  the  same  plane, 
but  could  never  raise  you  one  foot  above 
your  ancient  level  of  earth:  whereas  the 
very  first  step  in  power  is  a  flight — is  an 
ascending  movement  into  another  element 
where  earth  is  forgotten." 

The  verdict  of  time  is  never  wrong. 
Books  that  delighted  generations  of  men 
have  done  so  because  of  real  merit  and 
these  are  the  books  that  have  embodied 
the  life  thought  of  great  men.     Shallow 


Classification  of  Books  61 

books  no  matter  how  brilliant  they  may  be 
are  short-lived.  The  best  thoughts  of 
the  best  men  endure  in  books  that  are 
true  to  human  experience  irrespective 
of  the  century  in  which  they  were  written. 
An  author  is  great  in  proportion  as  he 
perceives    the    universally    true    in    life. 

The  books  which  do  us  good  are  the 
sincere  books,  those  which  are  true  in 
the  highest  sense  of  the  word  which 
give  noble  and  cheerful  ideas  of  life,  which 
make  us  respect  human  nature,  books 
written  by  men  who  have  a  helpful  mes- 
sage for  their  fellow  strugglers. 

There  are  books  which  mark  epochs 
in  the  progress  of  the  world  just  as  the 
discovery  of  America  and  the  invention 
of  printing  do,  and  the  reading  of  a  book 
sometimes  marks  an  epoch  in  life.  Great 
is  the  joy  of  meeting  a  real  book  by  a 
thoughtful  man.  Keats  wrote  on  first 
looking  into  Chapman's  Homer: — 
"Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken 
Or  like  stout  Cortes  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific — and  all  his  men 
Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surprise — 
Silent,   upon   a   peak  in   Darien." 


CHAPTER  VII. 
POETRY. 

Poetry  is  the  flower  of  literature,  the 
most  perfect  utterance  of  the  human  mind 
in  no  other  of  his  works  does  man  so  nearly 
approach  the  Divine,  so  that  in  every  age 
the  poet  has  been  regarded  as  the  inspired 
mouthpiece  of  God.  The  prophet  was 
the  forth  teller  not  merely  the  foreteller 
and  his  message  commanded  attention 
and  respect  as  coming  from  a  power  above 
the  speaker.  Whatever  may  be  said  to 
the  contrary  there  still  remains  the  fact 
that  the  greatest  and  noblest  thoughts 
which  have  ever  occupied  the  mind  of 
man  have  found  their  highest  and  most 
permanent  expression  in  poetry,  the  out- 
ward form  of  which  differing  from  the 
language  of  daily  life  is  at  once  the  ac- 
companiment and  indication  of  the  dig- 
nity of  a  great  idea. 

Wordsworth  calls  poetry  the  breath 
and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge.  To  the 
question,  "What  is  a  poet?"  he  replies, 
(62) 


Poetry  63 

"He  is  a  man  speaking  to  men;  a  man, 
it  is  true,  endowed  with  more  lively  sen- 
sibility, more  enthusiasm  and  tenderness, 
who  has  a  greater  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  and  a  more  comprehensive  Soul 
than  are  supposed  to  be  common  among 
mankind  To  these  qualities  he  has  added 
a  disposition  to  be  affected  more  than  other 
men  by  absent  things  as  if  they  were 
present." 

Poetry  is  life  crystalized  into  literature, 
its  value  is  in  its  eternal  truth,  in  its  univer- 
sal adaptation  to  the  higher  needs  of  our 
nature.  It  is  because  we  find  in  poetry 
what  we  have  observed  but  could  not 
formulate  for  ourselves  that  it  impresses 
us  so  deeply.  George  Eliot  said  of  Words- 
worth's poems,  "I  never  before  met  with 
so  many  of  my  own  feelings  expressed 
just  as  I  should  like  them."  "There  is 
some  awe  mixed  with  the  joy  of  our 
surprise,"  wrote  Emerson,  "when  this 
poet,  who  lived  in  some  past  world,  two 
or  three  hundred  years  ago^  says  that 
which  Hes  close  to  my  own  Soul,  that 
which  I  also  had  well-nigh  thought  and 
said." 


64      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Lowell  thought  that  the  highest  office 
of  a  great  poet  is  to  show  us  how  much 
variety,  freshness,  and  opportunity  abides 
n  the  obvious  and  the  familiar.  Great 
poets  have  concentrated  in  their  works 
the  thought  of  an  age.  Gladstone  says 
that  the  poems  of  Homer  constitute  a 
world  of  their  own.  "The  study  of  him 
is  not  a  mere  matter  of  literary  criticism, 
but  is  a  full  study  of  life  in  every  one  of 
its  departments."  Poetry  has  somewhat 
the  same  relation  to  prose  that  a  landscape 
painted  by  Corot  bears  to  a  photograph 
of  the  same  scene.  It  is  truth  idealized. 
The  poets  teach  us  to  admire  beauties  in 
nature  that  we  have  often  looked  at  but 
never  perceived.  If  it  were  not  for  Scott 
few  people  would  know  of  Loch  Katrine. 

There  is  just  as  beautiful  scenery  else- 
where, but  we  are  waiting  for  the  poets 
to  show  it  to  us. 

Sometimes  the  poets  compress  their 
observations  of  life  and  of  the  working 
of  the  spirit  of  man  into  words  which 
embody  a  great  truth  in  a  little  space. 
"Jewels  five  words  long  that  on  the 
stretch'd  forefinger  of  all  Time  sparkle 
forever."     Often    the    poets    produce    an 


Poetry  65 

impression  or  make  a  picture  by  the  use 
or  a  single  appropriate  word,  as  when 
Tennyson  says  the  cloud  smoulders  on 
the  cliff.  He  is  master  of  the  art  of  call- 
ing up  mental  images  by  allusions  to 
color,  sound  and  smell,  and  he  carefully 
chooses  from  his  enormous  vocabulary 
the  exact  word  to  produce  the  desired 
effect. 

Lowell  thought  that  the  real  literary 
genius  stored  up  the  apt  or  pleasing  word, 
and  Ruskin  said,  "he  is  the  best  poet 
who  can  by  the  fewest  words  touch  the 
greatest  number  of  secret  chords  of  thought 
in  his  reader's  own  mind,  and  set  them  to 
work  in  their  own  way." 

The  inspiration  and  delight  derived 
from  familiarity  with  the  best  poetry 
is  one  of  the  most  precious  results  of  cul- 
ture. More  than  any  other  work  of  man 
poetry  helps  us  to  cherish  the  ideal  and 
we  look  to  our  ideals  to  counteract  the 
hardness  of  our  daily  life,  to  strengthen 
and  uplift  us.  To  read  a  great  poet  for 
a  few  minutes  every  day  raises  one  out 
of  the  commonplace.  Matthew  Arnold, 
who  was  one  of  the  hardest  w^orked  men 
of  his  time,  used  to  read  a  hundred  lines 


66       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

or  more  of  the  Odyssey  before  he  went  to 
bed.  He  said  that  "Good  poetry  does 
undoubted!}^  tend  to  form  the  Soul  and 
character;  it  tends  to  beget  a  love  of 
beauty  and  of  truth  in  alliance  together; 
it  suggests  however  indirectly  high  and 
noble  principles  of  action,  and  it  inspires 
the  emotions  helpful  in  making  prin- 
ciples operative,  and  he  added,  "We 
have  to  turn  to  poetry  to  interpret  life 
for  us,  to  console  us,  to  sustain  us." 

It  is  one  of  the  fortunate  miracles  of 
literature  that  so  much  of  the  very  best 
poetry  is  also  within  the  comprehension  of 
the  humblest  understanding.  Many  of  the 
poems  which  have  been  the  delight  and 
consolation  of  men  of  the  greatest  mental 
capacities  have  also  the  power  to  encourage 
and  uplift  those  of  far  lower  abilities. 
The  Psalms  of  David,  for  example,  have 
heights  and  depths  which  have  made  them 
the  inspiration  of  men  of  all  classes  in 
all  ages.  Progress  in  the  understanding 
of  the  poets  is  the  result  of  reading  which, 
beginning  with  those  that  are  easiest  to 
comprehend,  goes  on  with  increasing  power 
to  those,  who,  like  Wordsworth,  are  phil- 
osophical  and   deep   and  those,  who,  like 


Poetry  67 

Browning  present  particular  difficulties  the 
overcoming  of  which  is  rewarded  by  a 
vast   wealth   of   inspiring  thought. 

Matthew  Arnold,  who  speaks  with  au- 
thority on  these  subjects  says,  "Con- 
stantly in  reading  poetry  a  sense  of  the 
best,  the  really  excellent,  and  of  the 
strength  and  joy  to  be  drawn  from  it, 
should  be  present  in  our  minds,  and 
should  govern  our  estimate  of  what  we 
read."  and  he  remarks  of  the  poet  that, 
"if  he  is  a  real  classic,  if  his  work  belongs 
to  the  class  of  the  very  best  (for  this  is 
the  true  and  right  meaning  of  the  word, 
classic,  classical),  then  the  great  thing  for 
us  is  to  feel  and  enjoy  his  work  as  deeply 
as  ever  we  can,  and  to  appreciate  the 
wide  difference  between  it  and  all  work 
which  has  not  the  same  high  character 
This  is  what  is  salutary,  this  is  what  is 
formative,  this  is  the  great  benefit  to  be 
got    from    the    study    of    poetry." 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  at  the 
first  reading  you  can  see  all  the  beauties 
that  a  word-painter  like  Tennyson  spent 
years  in  elaborating.  A  masterpiece  can- 
not be  read  too  carefully  nor  too  often. 
To    appreciate    a    great    picture    like    the 


68      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Sistine  Madonna,  you  must  return  to  it 
again  and  again  and  let  its  gracious  sweet- 
ness sink  into  your  soul.  It  is  so  that  you 
must   study   a   great   poem. 

Hence  it  follows  naturally  that  there  is 
great  culture  value  in  storing  the  memory 
with  noble  poems.  While  we  should 
not  go  so  far  as  to  say  with  Ruskin  that 
no  poetry  is  worth  reading  which  is  not 
worth  learning  by  heart,  there  is  an 
inspiration  in  adorning  our  minds  with 
as  much  as  we  can  learn  accurately  from 
the  great  poets;  and  this  inspiration  is 
derived  especially  from  the  poetry  we 
have  known  and  loved  in  youth,  which 
has,  from  its  very  associations,  a  strength 
and   sweetness  that   no   other   can   have. 

"Many  a  noble  poem,"  says  Henry 
Pancoast,  "early  acquired  by  a  pure 
effort  of  the  memory  and  at  first  but  dimly 
understood,  has  gradually  worked  its 
way  into  the  hidden  depths  of  a  child's 
conscious  life,  revealing  its  full  power 
and  beauty  only  by  slow  degrees,  and 
elevating,  quickening,  and  enlarging  his 
spirit    in    secrecy    and    in    silence." 

Poetry  as  the  truest  expression  of  the 
life  and  morals  of  an  age  is  at  once  a  pro- 


Poetry  69 

phecy  and  a  history.  A  prophecy  as 
indicating  that  to  which  the  nation  would 
aspire — a  history  as  a  record  of  the  fact 
of  past  aspiration,  Concrete  individual 
fact  has  little  significance  to  poetry  except 
as  the  manifestation  of  an  idea  or  of  a 
universal  truth. — The  poet  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  his  age  and  his  era  and  a  full  under- 
standing of  his  poetry  gives  us  an  insight 
into  the  very  heart  of  them. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

BIOGRAPHY. 

Great  poetry  is  the  expression  of  the 
spiritual  life,  not  of  the  poet  merely, 
but  of  the  poet  in  his  capacity  of  forth- 
teller  of  what  is  divine  and  universal  in 
human  life.  History  deals  with  the  life 
and  actions  and  motives  of  men  in  a 
particular  age  and  treats  of  human  achieve- 
ments and  relations,  and  of  their  causes 
and  effects.  Both  Poetry  and  History 
are  in  a  sense  impersonal,  being  concerned 
not  so  much  with  individuals  as  such,  as 
with  the  ideals  toward  which  or  the  ideas 
with  which  men  live  their  lives  and  do 
their  work.  It  is  biography  to  which  we 
turn  for  the  most  intimate  and  detailed 
personal  knowledge  of  a  particular  great 
man  who  may  have  been  the  poet  whose 
lines  have  met  response  in  every  heart 
or  the  writer  whose  mind  has  guided  a 
nation.  As  dealing  with  life  itself  bio- 
graphy may  well  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  important  divisions  of  literature.  It 
(70) 


Biography  71 

may  be  and  usually  is  found  to  belong 
in  both  classes,  the  literature  of  knowledge, 
and  the  literature  of  power.  There  is  a 
•directness  about  a  great  biography  that 
causes  us  to  feel  personally  acquainted 
with    the    subject    of   it. 

'The  great  man,"  says  Carlyle,  "does- 
in  good  truth,  belong  to  his  own  age — 
nay,  more  so  than  any  other  man ;  being 
properly  the  synopsis  and  epitome  of 
such  age  with  its  interests  and  influences; 
but  belongs  likewise  to  all  ages,  otherwise 
he  is  not  great.  What  was  transitory 
in  him  passes  away  and  an  immortal 
part  remains,  the  significance  of  which 
is  in  strict  speech  inexhaustible — as  that 
of  every  real  object  is.  Aloft,  conspicuous, 
on  his  enduring  basis,  he  stands  there, 
serene,  unaltering;  silently  addresses  to 
every  new  generation  a  new  lesson  and 
monition.  Well  is  his  life  worth  writing, 
worth  interpreting;  and  ever,  in  the  new 
dialect  of  new  times,  of  rewriting  and  re- 
interpreting;" and  he  adds,  "as  the  high- 
est Gospel  was  a  Biography,  so  is  the 
Life  of  every  good  man  still  an  indubitable 
Gospel." 


72       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

There  is  an  obvious  similarity  between 
the  biography  of  a  great  man  by  a  great 
man  and  the  portrait  of  a  great  man  by 
a  great  artist.  The  National  Portrait 
Gallery  in  London  makes  real  to  us  the 
men  who  have  been  England's  glory  in 
peace  and  war.  No  one  can  leave  it 
after  looking  on  the  faces  of  Gladstone 
and  Tennyson  and  Sir  John  Franklin  and 
the  hundreds  of  others  who  scorned  de- 
lights and  lived  laborious  days  without 
having  a  higher  estimate  of  humanity 
and  being  nerved  to  new  efforts,  and  we 
may  obtain  the  same  effect  in  a  more 
detailed  manner  by  reading  the  best 
biographies. 

The  number  of  great  men  who  are  alive 
at  any  one  time  is  small,  and  they  are 
too  much  occupied  to  see  any  but  those 
who  have  important  business  with  them, 
but  we  may  study  them  at  our  leisure 
in  their  biographies,  and  go  over  the 
events  of  years  in  a  few  hours. 

A  knowledge  of  the  life  of  an  author 
always  adds  interest  to  the  perusal  of  his 
books  and  is  frequently  of  value  in  explain- 
ing them.  The  study  of  the  noble  life  in 
connection  with  the  works  of  the  noble 


Biography  73 

mind  is  one  of  the  best  foundations  for 
liberal  culture.  Consider  the  influence  of 
an  acquaintance  with  the  entire  works  of 
Longfellow  or  Lowell,  read  in  connection 
with  the  life  of  the  former  by  his  brother, 
or  with  the  biography  of  the  latter  by  Scud- 
der.  To  know  the  atmosphere  which 
surrounded  such  men,  the  things  towards 
which  their  interest  went  out,  the  sources 
from  which  they  drew  their  inspiration, 
the  way  in  which  the  common  experiences 
of  life,  so  familiar  to  us  all  grew  beautiful 
under  their  poetic  imagination;  a  famil- 
iarity with  all  these  things  will  elevate 
a  man's  whole  life. 

The  light  too  which  is  thrown  by  bio- 
graphy on  the  conduct  of  life  is  very  great. 
Theory,  philosophizing,  opinions,  reason- 
ing, are  of  little  worth  when  compared 
with  the  actual  facts  of  the  life  of  a  man 
who  has  attained  distinction  in  any  de- 
partment of  human  achievement.  Read- 
ing of  this  kind  teaches  us  that  chance  is 
only  to  a  small  extent  an  element  of  success, 
that  nothing  is  attained  by  the  brightest 
minds  without  that  infinite  patience  and 
labor  which  in  itself  is  genius.  To  think 
of  the  brave  way  in  which  such  men  met 


74       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

the  trials  that  they  were  called  upon  to 
endure  is  a  most  healthful  remedy  for 
warped    and   selfish   ideas   of   life. 

Take  the  life  of  Scott  by  Lockhart; 
note  the  domestic  tastes  of  the  author 
of  Waverly,  his  kindly  interest  in  the 
humblest  persons  around  him,  the  heroic 
way  in  which  he  nerved  himself  to  meet 
single-handed  the  overwhelming  catas- 
trophe of  the  failure  of  Constable,  the  way 
in  which,  while  struggling  with  physical 
weaknesses  that  would  have  rendered 
another  conscious  only  of  his  own  suffer- 
ings, he  retained  his  simplicity  and  gentle 
thoughtfulness  for  others, — all  these  les- 
sons may  be  learned  from  that  noble 
biography. 

We  should  take  a  sympathetic  interest 
in  the  lives  of  high-minded  men,  and  note 
how  in  spite  of  obstacles  and  failures  they 
have  accomplished  their  purposes  and 
how  some  have  been  great  because  they 
nobly  tried  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
they  nobly  failed.  Nothing  is  more  help- 
ful than  to  see  that  our  ills  are  not  peculiar 
to  ourselves,  but  that  others  have  overcome 
the  same  difficulties  that  are  perplexing 
us. 


Biography  75 

Biography  teaches  us  to  look  at  life 
from  many  points  of  view.  In  reading 
biography,  said  Dr.  Andrew  Peabody,  "I 
find  myself  translating  a  life  unlike  what 
mine  can  ever  be  into  terms  of  my  own 
life,  shaping  from  it  analogies,  equivalents, 
and  parallels  for  my  own  aims  and  endeav- 
ors, studying  modes  of  embodying  its  un- 
derlying principles  in  forms,  it  may  be  of 
which  he  whose  experience  suggests  them 
could  never  have  dreamed." 

Learn  to  make  a  distinction  between  the 
essential  and  fundamental  characteristics 
of  a  great  man  and  such  gossipy  details 
as  what  he  had  for  breakfast  and  how  he 
wore  his  hair.  "It  is  the  great  error  of 
thoughtless  biographers,"  says  Ruskin, 
to  attribute  to  the  accident  which  intro- 
duces some  new  phase  of  character,  all 
the  circumstances  of  character  which  gave 
the  accident  importance." 

When  a  great  man  has  written  the  story 
of  his  own  life  the  result  is  a  book  of 
double  value.  Emerson  and  George  Eliot 
agreed  in  considering  the  Confessions  of 
Rousseau  the  most  interesting  book  they 
had  ever  read.  Franklin's  Autobiography 
is  a  model  of  keen  and  accurate  observation 


76      How  ta  Moke  the  Most  of  Books 

expressed    in    the    clearest    and    simplest 
language. 

BoswelVs  Life  of  Johnson  is  commonly 
considered  the  best  biography  in  the 
language.  Of  this  and  Lockhart's  Scott 
Phillips  Brooks  says  that  they  are  "worthy 
to  be  read  and  re-read,  and  read  again 
by  all  men  who  want  to  keep  their  manhood 
healthy,    broad    and    brave,    and    true." 


CHAPTER  IX. 
HISTORY. 

The  object  of  history  is  to  tell  us  not 
only  what  happened  but  the  causes  and 
results  of  what  happened,  and  this  leads 
the  historian  into  almost  every  field  of 
human  interest.  He  deals,  to  be  sure, 
with  facts,  as  far  as  he  is  able  to  ascertain 
them,  but  his  generalizations  and  inter- 
pretations of  facts  are  an  important  part 
of  his  work.  The  historian  must  abandon 
prejudice,  preconception  and  predilection 
of  every  kind.  He  must  deal  with  the 
people,  their  ideas,  development  and  soc- 
ial movements  as  well  as  with  the  incidents 
of  war  and  foreign  relations  and  the  ac- 
tions and  influence  of  great  men  whose 
agency  in  shaping  the  progress  of  events 
is  often  over-estimated. 

As  everything  which  passes  through 
the  human  mind  is  necessarily  colored 
more  or  less  by  the  particular  mind  through 
which  it  passes,  we  find  that  the  history 
of  the  same  people  during  the  same  period 
(77) 


78       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

will  not  seem  in  all  respects  to  be  identical 
when  presented  by  different  historians. 
Macaulay  and  Carlyle,  each  of  whom  wrote 
history  with  extraordinary  brilliancy, 
present  to  us  pictures  of  the  times  of 
which  they  wrote  that  for  interest  are 
wonderful  but  for  accuracy  are  in  many 
respects  less  valuable  than  the  histories 
written  by  authors  of  less  ability. 

Psychologists  tell  us  that  the  chief  use 
of  the  study  of  history  is  to  train  the  judg- 
ment. It  has  other  uses,  however,  which 
while  not  so  essential  from  the  viewpoint 
of  the  psychologist,  are  important  in  their 
bearing  on  the  development  of  the  individ- 
ual. The  breadth  of  view  which  comes 
from  a  knowledge  of  the  relations  of  men 
in  another  period  or  land  helps  us  in  the 
understanding  of  the  affairs  of  our  own 
nation  or  community  in  our  own  day. 
Human  struggles,  achievements  or  even 
failures  must  ever  interest  the  thoughtful 
man  and  the  rise,  progress  and  decline 
or  success  of  great  movements  in  another 
age  enables  us  to  judge  intelligently  of 
similar  or  other  movements  going  on  about 
us.  Narrowness  and  bigotry  will  ever 
exist  even  among  men  who  are  in  intention 


History  79 

perfectly  sincere  and  honest,  but  the  man 
who  is  narrow  and  bigoted  in  regard  to 
any  subject  because  of  ignorance  of  his- 
tory or  unwilHngness  to  ascertain  the  full 
facts  is  dishonest  to  himself.  History 
is  one  of  the  most  enlightening  of  studies 
and  its  effect  upon  daily  conduct  if  rightly 
viewed  may  be  such  as  to  lead  men  to  a 
wider  and  fuller  application  of  the  Golden 
Rule.  In  fact  much  of  what  the  historian 
is  called  upon  to  record  has  a  direct  re- 
lation to  the  Golden  Rule  or  rather  to  the 
frequent  failure  of  men  to  observe  it. 
To  the  devout  mind  the  working  of  God 
in  history  is  clearly  shown,  and  the  down- 
fall of  nations  may  be  traced  in  many  in- 
stances to  a  decline  in  religious  earnestness 
and  to  a  consequent  lowering  of  moral 
standards. 

The  thought  that  human  history  from 
the  beginning  has  been  one  continuous 
and  progressive  whole  without  a  break 
or  intermission  of  any  kind  is  an  idea  for 
the  clear  expression  and  emphasizing  of 
which  we  are  greatly  indebted  to  Thomas 
Arnold.  The  histories  of  Greece  and 
Rome  are  our  histories,  for  from  them 
has  come  the  glorious  heritage  of  thought 


80       How  to  Make  ths  Moet  of  Books 

and  social  organization  which  we  have  in 
their  literature  and  in  Roman  law.  All 
facts  in  history  are  in  some  way  related, 
though  we  often  lose  the  connection 
through  ignorance  of  intervening  facts 
or  events,  or  through  lack  of  knowledge 
of  even  whole  centuries  of  human  life 
and  struggle. 

The  Old  Testament  regarded  as  actual 
human  history  is  a  series  of  documents 
pulsating  with  the  very  life  and  heart- 
beats of  real  men.  It  is  no  dry  theology 
or  book  apart  from  great  movements  of 
mankind.  It  is  the  living  record  of  one 
part  of  our  race.  History  interprets  for 
us  the  present  and  enables  us  to  predict 
the  future.  It  shows  that  there  are  laws 
which  govern  human  relationships  and 
that  a  knowledge  of  these  laws  will  enable 
us  to  judge  what  is  likely  to  come  to  pass. 
A  study  of  the  method  pursued  by  the 
men  who  have  written  great  histories 
reveals  to  us  the  diligence  of  investigation, 
the  labor  to  secure  accuracy,  the  care  to 
be  impartial  observers  that  must  char- 
acterize the  writers  of  history  as  we  now 
understand  it.  An  important  part  of 
the  work  of  a  modern  historian  consists 


History  81 

in  weighing  and  interpreting  the  state- 
ments of  writers  of  long  ago  who  are  often 
the  only  source  we  have  of  information 
concerning  the  things  of  which  they  wrote. 
No  source  of  information  is  to  be  ignored. 
An  inscription  on  a  coin  may  unfold  a 
story  to  the  patient  searcher  for  histori- 
cal knowledge;  an  Etruscan  tomb  may 
modify  our  understanding  of  a  passage 
of  early  Roman  history;  a  visit  to  the 
scene  of  one  of  Caesar's  battles  may  give 
us  an  entirely  different  idea  of  the  great 
general's  account  of  it. 

John  Fiske  said  that  "The  real  history 
of  a  people  includes  everything  about 
them  and  is  therefore  an  aggregate  of  in- 
numerable facts.  It  is  impossible  and  un- 
desirable to  present  all  these  facts  or  a 
millionth  part  of  them  and  so  history  must 
be  a  selection  from  infinite  details.  His- 
toric facts  are  not  of  equal  value  and  the 
historian  fixes  upon  those  only  which  he 
thinks  will  help  him  show  the  greater  fea- 
tures of  a  people's  origin,  rise,  progress 
and  vicissitudes.  It  is  desirable  to  have 
at  command  the  more  important  facts 
of  history,  but  the  most  precious  thing 
history  has  to  offer  may  be  missed  by  one 


82       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

who  is  chiefly  employed  in  memorizing 
it.  When  history  is  viewed  as  an  assem- 
blage of  unrelated  facts,  conquering  it 
naturally  takes  the  form  of  committing 
it  to  memory.  When  it  is  looked  upon 
as  a  development — a  chain  of  causes  and 
effects — it  appeals  more  directly  to  the 
reason  and  the  understanding.  Most  of 
history  we  must  forget,  but  we  should  strive 
to  retain  something  of  interest  in  reading 
history,  something  of  power  in  following 
up  a  line  of  ordinary  investigation,  some- 
thing of  a  disposition  to  seek  for  the  un- 
derlying causes  of  events,  something  of 
a  grasp  of  the  mightier  tendencies  and 
movements  of  history  that  makes  it  a 
teacher  of  the  present  out  of  the  wealth 
of  its  past." 

History  as  contained  in  the  biographies 
of  representative  men  is  both  delightful 
and  profitable  reading.  Montaigne  tells 
us  that  "the  only  good  histories  are  those 
that  are  written  by  such  as  commanded 
or  were  imploid  themselves  in  weighty 
affaires  or  that  were  partners  in  the  con- 
duct of  them,  or  that  at  least  have  had  the 
fortune  to  manage  others  of  like  qualitie." 


Hiitory  83 

Our  literature  is  especially  rich  in  bio- 
graphies and  autobiographies  of  men  prom- 
inent in  American  history,  such  as  Wash- 
ington, Franklin  and  Lincoln,  and  in 
personal  memoirs  such  as  those  of  Grant, 
Sherman,  Sheridan,  Johnston  and  Long- 
street.  The  accounts  of  the  Civil  War 
by  the  Northern  and  Southern  commanders 
form  a  valuable  exercise  of  the  judgment 
for  they  show  how  honorable  men  may 
look  at  a  question  from  different  points 
of  view.  Such  reading  should  teach  self 
reliance  and  confidence  as  well  as  modesty 
and  fairmindedness.  One  should  first  read 
a  short  and  reliable  book,  and,  after  he  has 
obtained  a  knowledge  of  the  course  of 
events,  expand  it  by  reading  longer  works 
and  by  making  a  comparison  of  authorities. 
Study  the  history  of  our  own  country,  but 
do  not  forget  that  it  cannot  be  perfectly 
understood  without  studying  that  of  other 
countries  and  especially  that  of  England. 
Students  of  history  consider  that  Roman 
history  unites  the  ancient  world  to  the  mo- 
ern;  French  history  is  the  story  of  civili- 
zation from  the  twelfth  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  European  history  centres  in 
French  history. 


84      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

We  may  sometimes  get  an  excellent 
idea  of  history  from  a  historical  novel 
such  as  The  Virginians  or  The  Scarlet 
Letter,  for  such  works  give  us  a  picture 
of  social  conditions  of  the  times  with  great 
historical  characters  appearing  usually, 
if  at  all,  in  the  background  or  setting  of 
the  story. 


CHAPTER  X. 
FICTION. 

Fiction  which  includes  two  closely 
related  forms,  the  novel  or  romance  and 
the  drama,  has  two  functions;  the  more 
important  being  the  interpreting  and  re- 
flecting of  life,  the  holding  of  the  mirror 
up  to  nature,  as  Hamlet  called  it,  and  the 
giving  of  pleasure  as  a  result  of  the  pre- 
sentation. 

The  romance  which  may  be  in  the  form 
of  a  novel  or  of  a  drama  differs  from  the 
ordinary  novel  as  chiefly  in  dealing  with 
the  unusual  and  improbable,  including  the 
supernatural.  The  novel  performs  to-day  a 
great  part  of  what  the  drama  performed 
practically  alone  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth 
and  James. 

The  close  relation  of  the  drama  and  the 
novel  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  same 
story  may  be  told  in  both  forms  and  it 
is  common  to-day  to  see  a  successful  novel 
presented  as  a  drama  on  the  stage  while 
on  the  other  hand,  novels  have  sometimes 
been  written  from  plays. 
(85) 


SQ      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

The  novel  and  the  drama  are  classed 
as  fiction  because  they  present  pictures 
that  are  usually  not  representations  of 
actual  fact,  but  no  novel  or  drama  is  worthy 
of  consideration  which  is  untrue  to  what 
might  happen  in  human  life  or  to  the 
great  essential  truths  of  human  relation- 
ships. This  is  not  a  distinction  between 
moral  and  immoral  novels  and  dramas, 
for  an  immoral  book  may  be  true  to  facts 
in  human  experience,  but  they  are  the  facts 
of  pathological  conditions  and  not  of 
health. 

An  immoral  book  is  one  in  which  vice 
is  made  attractive  and  evil  is  condoned  and 
unpunished .  The  Elizabethan  drama  nev- 
er made  vice  triumphant  and  the  sinner 
always  was  made  to  pay  the  just  penalty 
for  his  sin.  The  drama  of  the  Restora- 
tion, narrower  in  human  interest  than 
that  of  the  Elizabethans,  differed  from 
the  latter  notably  in  the  attitude  towards 
vice;  sacred  relationships  were  matters 
of  jest  by  the  dissolute  courtiers  and 
their  followers  and  vice  was  objectionable 
only  when  found  out.  When  our  ideas 
of  right  and  wrong  are  confused  and  our 
onceptions  of  morality  undermined  by  a 


Fiction  87 

book,  it  is  to  be  avoided,  for  it  can  only  do- 
us  harm.  No  good  book  ever  makes  sin 
respectable  though  it  may  of  necessit}'' 
present  scenes  in  which  disreputable  char- 
acters  appear;  one  of  the  greatest  examples- 
of  this  is  Vanity  Fair. 

Keener  observers  than  we  are,  who  saw 
deeper  into  the  inner  workings  of  human 
nature  have  described  in  novels  the  oper- 
ations and  consequences  of  love,  hate, 
avarice,  revenge  and  other  emotions  which 
are  always  likely  to  move  the  heart. 
It  is  therefore  of  the  utmost  importance 
that  when  we  read  fiction  we  should  read 
none  except  that  written  by  masters  who 
really  did  understand  the  soul  of  man, 
for  when  we  read  books  by  inferior  observ- 
ers we  get  warped  and  false  ideas.  In 
giving  impressions  of  life  the  novel  possess- 
es a  great  advantage  over  biography, 
because,  out  of  respect  for  the  memory 
of  the  dead  and  the  feelings  of  the  living, 
the  tendency  of  biography  is  to  omit 
or  to  subdue  harsh  experiences,  so  that 
books  like  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau 
which  describe  the  deepest  workings  and 
weaknesses  of  the  heart  of  a  real  man 
are  exceedingly  rare. 


88  How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

Treating  of  imaginary  characters,  the 
■novelist  may  describe  what  he  actually 
sees  without  fear  of  hurting  the  feelings 
-oi  anyone.  The  tendency  of  many  novels 
to  conventionalize  life  and  to  express  in 
set  phrases  the  tenderest  emotions  is 
•another  reason  why  we  should  read  no 
fiction  but  that  which  is  true  to  life.  We 
may  occasionally  be  obliged  to  read  for 
information  a  book  written  by  an  inferior 
author  but  there  is  no  excuse  for  reading 
any  novels  but  those  of  the  highest  class. 
We  should  question  fiction  sharply  as 
to  its  effect  upon  our  natures;  if  it  does 
not  have  a  wholesome  and  uplifting  in- 
fluence, no  amount  of  interest  that  it 
posses  should  entitle  it  to  consideration. 

When  you  read  fiction  read  that  written 
by  the  masters,  like  Scott,  Dickens,  Thack- 
-ery  and  George  Eliot.  Read  the  great 
novels  that  the  judgment  of  the  world  has 
pronounced  of  permanent  value  but  do 
not  form  one  of  the  large  class  whose  chief 
inspiration  is  derived  from  the  last  new 
novel.  The  new  book  that  every  one  is 
talking  about  will  probably  be  forgotten 
in  six  months  but  Ivanhoe,  Henry  Esmond, 
David   Copperfield,   and   Romola  will  last 


Fiction  89 

as  long  as  the  English  language.  There 
are  some  classic  stories  like  Robinson 
Crusoe,  Gulliver's  Travels  and  The  Arabian 
Nights  to  which  constant  reference  is 
made  and  with  which  every  educated 
person  is  expected  to  be  familiar. 

To  keep  up  with  the  flood  of  modern 
fiction  is  impossible.  There  is  a  great 
gain  if  we  can  find  amusement  in  reading 
books  which  inform  as  well  as  entertain. 
Prefer  fact  to  fiction.  Few  are  indifferent 
to  the  pathos  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray 
but  there  is  a  chord  touched  in  reading 
of  the  actual  heroism  of  brave  men  and 
women  which  no  imaginary  character 
can  affect  so  strongly.  When  we  read 
poor  DeLong's  record,  in  the  midst  of 
that  terrible  Arctic  winter  on  the  Jean- 
nette,  "for  myself,  I  am  doing  all  I  can 
to  make  myself  trusted  and  respected, 
and  I  think  I  succeed,  I  try  to  be  gentle 
but  firm  in  correcting  anything  I  see  wrong, 
and  always  calm  and  self-possessed." 
we  are  moved  by  a  real  human  sympathy. 
Yet  it  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  the  masters 
of  fiction  that  they  make  their  characters 
so  real  to  us.  Lowell  said  he  knew  the 
sound  of  Squire  Weston's  voice;  and  for 


90       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

many  people  Baker  Street,  London,  is 
more  definite  as  a  landmark  as  the  residence 
of  the  imaginary  Sherlock  Holmes  than 
of  the   real   Mrs.   Siddons. 


CHAPTER  XL 

LIBRARIES  AND  THE  CARE 
OF   BOOKS. 

We  do  not  get  the  most  out  of  a  book 
unless  we  own  it ;  we  cannot  take  a  personal 
interest  in  borrowed  books,  and,  although 
it  pleases  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  to  think 
of  the  thousands  of  thumbs  that  have 
turned  over  its  pages  with  delight,  it  is 
difficult  really  to  know  a  library  book 
with  its  soiled  pages,  battered  cover  and 
the  date  when  it  must  be  returned  impend- 
ing like  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

There  is  the  same  difference  between  a 
book  that  you  own  and  a  library  book 
that  there  is  between  a  home  and  a  hotel ; 
the  one  is  stamped  with  the  individuality 
of  its  owner,  the  other  is  common  pro- 
perty. It  is  pleasant  to  have  a  feeling  of 
proprietorship  in  the  great  men  of  the 
past  and  to  speak  of  my  Homer  or  my 
Shakespeare.  How  close  it  brings  us  to 
a  man  when  we  possess  a  book  with  his 
(91) 


92      How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

autograph  or  book-plate  in  it,  or  which, 
better  still,  he  has  read  and  marked.  If 
for  instance,  we  owned  Lowell's  Don 
Quixote  with  the  notes  written  on  its 
margin  in  repeated  readings  from  which 
he  drew  the  material  for  his  famous 
address,  what  an  inspiration  it  would  be. 

The  books  that  you  skim  you  may  bor- 
row, if  you  buy  them  they  will  take  up 
room  on  your  shelves  that  may  be  more 
profitably  employed;  but  the  books  that 
you  wish  to  read  again  and  again, to  ponder 
over  and  to  study  you  must  own. 

You  may  have  a  library  full  of  books, 
but  what  you  really  are  is  determined 
by  that  part  of  them  which  you  have  read 
and  laid  to  heart.  Yet  the  unconscious 
tuition  of  books  has  a  real  value,  we  learn 
to  love  them  by  having  them  about  us. 
Merely  to  surround  ourselves  with  great 
books  and  with  the  portraits  of  those  who 
have  written  them  has  a  refining  influence 
as  constant  as  it  is  unnoticed.  That  the 
essay  of  Emerson  or  the  poem  of  Long- 
fellow is  where  you  can  lay  your  hand  on 
it,  that  the  kindly  faces  of  the  writers 
look  down  on  you  from  the  wall,  associa- 


The  Care  of  Books  93 

tions  such  as  these  sweeten  and  elevate 
life. 

Although  there  is  a  luxurious  beauty 
about  an  elegant  edition  that  is  not  to  be 
lightly  esteemed,  there  is  a  satisfaction 
in  knowing  that  we  can  derive  as  much 
food  for  thought  from  a  cheap  Shakes- 
peare as  from  a  first  folio.  The  truest 
book-lovers  are  those  who  love  the  thoughts 
that  the  books  contain.  Complete  edi- 
tions of  standard  authors  are  the  best  to 
own.  The  print  should  be  large  and  the 
books  easy  to  hold  and  to  open.  If  edit- 
ed at  all,  the  work  should  be  done  by  a 
competent  scholar.  If  takes  a  great  deal 
of  editing  to  spoil  a  classic,  but  nowadays 
there  is  too  much  editing,  too  much  think- 
ing is  done  for  us. 

Dr.  Johnson  thought  that  books  that 
you  may  carry  to  the  fire  and  hold  readily 
in  your  hand  are  the  most  useful. 

The  durablity  of  the  letter  as  well  as 
the  spirit  of  a  book  is  nowadays  too 
often  disregarded.  Publishers  recognize 
how  much  a  striking  exterior  has  to  do 
with  the  sale  of  a  book  and  pay  more  at- 
tention to  making  it  attractive  than  dur- 
able.    In    former    times    men    had    more 


94       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

respect  for  books.  The  vellum  bound 
volumes  of  three  hundred  years  ago  will 
be  in  good  condition  long  after  the  books 
of  to-day  have  come  to  pieces  and  been 
thrown  away. 

If  it  be  true  that  the  degree  of  civiliza- 
tion of  a  people  may  be  measured  by  its 
respect  for  its  dead,  it  is  no  less  true  that 
the  refinement  of  a  household  may  be  esti- 
mated by  its  care  for  its  books.  Some 
men  of  letters,  however,  have  been  re- 
markable for  their  ill-treatment  of  books. 
The  poet  Young  turned  down  the  leaf 
where  there  was  a  passage  that  interested 
him,  so  that  many  of  his  books  would 
not  shut.  Voltaire  noted  his  likes  and 
dislikes  in  books  with  little  regard  to 
whether  they  belonged  to  him  or  not, 
while  Coleridge  said  you  might  as  well 
turn  a  bear  into  a  tulip  garden  as  let  Words- 
worth loose  in  your  library;  and  in  his 
Literary  Reminiscences  DeQuincey  records 
a  story  which  makes  every  book-lover 
shudder,  that  Wordsworth  cut  pages  of 
Burke  with  a  knife  that  had  been  used  to 
butter  toast. 

Mr.  Spofford  gives  some  admirable 
directions    for    the    care    of   books.     One 


The  Care  of  Books  95 

should  never  draw  books  out  from  the  shelf 
by  their  head-bands,  or  by  pulling  at  the 
binding,  but  by  placing  the  finger  firmly 
on  the  top  of  the  book,  next  to  the  binding 
and  pressing  down  while  drawing  out  the 
volume.  Do  not  wedge  books  tightly  to- 
gether; do  not  pile  them  on  top  of  each 
other;  do  not  lay  open  books  down  upon 
their  faces,  or  place  weights  upon  open 
books.  Books  should  be  kept  dry,  but 
not  too  warm ;  if  moist  they  mildew,  if  too 
warm  they  warp.  No  sensible  person 
would  press  plants  in  any  book  of  value. 
Do  not  mark  the  place  by  cards  or  letters. 
It  weakens  the  binding.  Use  thin  paper. 
Do  not  touch  the  engravings  in  books. 
Remember  that  even  clean  hands  may 
soil  dusty  books.  Those  who  follow  the 
injunction  of  the  Prayer  Book  to  read  and 
mark  should  be  sure  that  they  do  so  in 
their  own  books  only.  The  suggestion 
not  to  wet  the  fingers  in  turning  the  leaf 
would  seem  needless  did  not  observation 
show  that  there  are  persons  with  whom 
this  clownish  custom  still  obtains. 

A  private  library  should  be  a  growth. 
It  marks  the  stages  of  progress  of  the 
mind  of  its  owner;  no  other  property  that 


96       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

a  man  leaves  behind  him  shows  what  he 
really  was  so  fully  as  his  books. 

There  are  few  hobbies  a  man  can  adopt 
from  which  as  much  enjoyment  and  in- 
struction may  be  derived  as  from  the 
gradual  acquisition  of  a  lot  of  books  on 
some  subject  of  special  interest.  Emer- 
son's advice  "buy  in  the  line  of  your  genius" 
is  weighty  and  should  be  heeded.  A  man 
of  moderate  means  may  gradually  get 
together  a  more  complete  collection  on 
his  specialty  than  the  richest  man  could 
secure  at  short  notice,  and  his  satisfaction 
in  the  growth  of  such  a  library  can  never 
be  experienced  by  the  wealthy  book 
collector  who  employs  others  to  do  the 
work  for  him.  All  that  is  needed  is  steady 
attention  to  buying  such  books,  as  op- 
portunity presents  itself.  Many  of  the 
rarest  and  most  valuable  works  cannot 
be  procured  on  demand  and  must  be  bought 
when  found,  or  the  chance  of  securing 
them  is  gone,  perhaps  forever. 

The  gathering  of  such  a  collection  may 
be  made  an  education  in  itself,  and  in- 
stead of  leaving  his  books  to  be  scattered 
at  his  death,  as  has  been  the  fate  of  so 
many    libraries,    a    prudent    man    would 


The  Care  of  Books  97 

provide  that  they  should  be  kept  together 
and  given  to  a  permanent  library.  Many 
an  institution  would  be  glad  to  add 
to  a  good  private  collection  on  a 
particular  subject  its  own  books  on  the 
subject  and  make  a  memorial  alcove  to 
the  donor  which  would  prove  a  far  more 
sensible  monument  than  a  shaft  in  the 
cemetery.  Now  that  men  have  learned 
to  respect  books  public  libraries  are  as 
nearly  immortal  as  any  human  institution 
can  be.  A  great  library  is  the  only  human 
institution  that  can  take  all  knowledge 
for  its  province.  Such  libraries  are  mines 
from  which  knowledge  may  be  quarried, 
and  where  the  ideas  of  the  past  may  be 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  present. 

In  a  collection  of  books  on  the  same 
subject  each  adds  value  to  the  other. 
Many  libraries  are  an  ill-assembled  throng 
as  useless  as  the  vast  army  of  Darius. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  an  embarrass- 
ment of  riches.  If  you  have  too  many 
books  about  you,  you  may  be  bewildered 
so  that  you  do  not  read  to  advantage. 
"Successful  work,"  said  Lowell,  "is  the 
result  of  a  due  proportion  between  the 
task  and  the  instrument.     Southey,  whose 


98       How  to  Make  the  Most  of  Books 

literary  industry  was  so  remarkable  with- 
in the  range  of  his  own  library,  said  'that 
he  never  should  have  accomplished  any- 
thing, if  his  energies  had  been  buried  under 
the  vast  stores  of  the  British  Museum.'  " 
As  a  workshop  the  public  library  may 
supplement,  but  it  can  rarely  take  the 
place  of  the  private  library.  DeQuincey 
said  that  for  mere  purposes  of  study  your 
own  library  is  far  preferable  to  the  Bod- 
leian or  the  Vatican,  and  Emerson  thought 
that  the  best  of  the  Harvard  University 
library  was  in  his  study  at  home.  That 
was  the  best  for  his  own  use,  because  when 
a  man  is  working  in  a  special  line  of  thought 
he  accumulates  in  time  a  collection  of 
books  on  that  subject  that  is  more  complete 
than  any  but  the  largest  library  can  supply, 
and  he  can  work  with  more  facility  with 
books  that  are  familiar  to  him  and  ready 
to  his  hand.  Emerson's  books,  however, 
would  have  been  of  little  use  to  a  Civil 
Engineer  or  to  an  American  Historian, 
while  a  public  library  must  provide  for 
the  needs  of  all  students  in  whatever  lines 
of  research.  But  Emerson  was  under 
constant  indebtedness  to  the  Harvard 
library,  in   fact,  that  noble  collection  of 


•••  ••    •  •     • 

•  ;••••    •• 

•  ••  •  ••• 


The  Care  of  Books  99 

books  has  played  no  small  part  in  the 
literary  development  of  Boston  as  well  as 
of  the  great  University.  'The  true  Uni- 
versity of  these  days,"  said  Carlyle,  "is  a 
collection  of  books,  and  all  education  is  to 
teach  us  how  to  read."      *     *     *     *     * 


Read  in  order  that  you  may  know  more, 
be  more,  do  more:  books  will  help  you  to 
accomplish  all  these  things  and  these 
things  make  up  the  sum  of  life,  here  and 
hereafter. 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

uIBRARY  SCHOOL  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

Onj  2fi  1955 

<B139s22)476                                                    Berkeley 

J 


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